























4P **ir:;.:* ^ v^ 



bV 































«o 




4.^ % 










■#«« 






.^'.-^iik-''- X-:r^%\. «^°.-^:;i>- 









QUEEN MARIE-THERESE. 



WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 



THE 



COURT OF LOUIS XIV, 



BY 

IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND 



TRANSLATED BY 

ELIZABETH GILBERT MARTIN 



WITH PORTRAITS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1900 






COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

Bequest 

Albert Adsit Olemona 

Aug. 24, 1938 

fNbt available for exchang-e^) 






^ 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 1 

CHAPTER 

I. The Chateau of Veksailles 29 

II. Louis XIV. and his Court in 1682 41 

III. Queen Marie TniRisB 54 

IV. Madame de Montespan in 1682 67 

V. Madame de Maintenon in 1682 86 

VI. The Bavarian Dauphiness 103 

VII. The Marriage of Madame de Maintenon 117 

VIII. Madame de Maintenon's Apartment 128 

IX. The Marquise de Caylus 143 

X. Madame de Maintenon and the Gentlewomen 

OF Saint-Cyr 157 

XI. The Duchess of Orleans 167 

XII. Madame de Maintenon as a Political Woman . . 183 

XIII. Madame de Maintenon's Letters 198 

XIV. The Old Age op Madame de Montespan 207 

V 



vi CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGIi 

XV, The Daughters op Louis XIV 215 

XVI. The Duchess op Burgundy 229 

Conclusion. The Tombs 248 

Index 259 



LIST OF PORTRAITS 

Queen Marie THEKi:8B Frontispiece 

Mademoiselle de La ValliIsre 64 

Madame de Montespan 128 

Madame de Maintenon 192 



THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. 



INTRODUCTION 
I 

EARELY has a city presented a spectacle so 
striking as that afforded by Versailles during 
the struggle of the army against the Commune. 
Between the grand century and our epoch, between 
the majesty of old France and the intestine broils of 
new France, between the dismal horrors of which 
Paris was the scene and the radiant souvenirs of 
the city of the Sun-King, there was a contrast as 
painful as it was startling. Those avenues where 
one might see the head of the government and the 
illustrious defeated man of Reichshoffen, that place 
of arms encumbered with cannons, those red flags, 
sad trophies of the civil war, which were taken to 
the Assembly as tokens of mourning as well as 
of victory, that magnificent palace whence seemed 
to issue a suppliant voice adjuring our soldiers to 
save so fair a heritage of historic splendors and 
national grandeurs, all filled the soul with profound 

emotion. 

1 



THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. 



At that hour of anguish when men experienced a 
but too well-founded anxiety as to what was to be- 
come of the hostages; when they knew that Paris 
was the prey of flames, and wondered whether a heap 
of cinders might not be all that would remain of the 
modern Babylon, the capital of the world, — the Pan- 
theon of all our glories seemed to reproach us and 
excite us to remorse. The France of Charlemagne 
and of Saint Louis, of Louis XIV. and of Napoleon, 
protested against that odious France which the men 
of the Commune had the pretension to call into ex- 
istence on the ruins of our honor. We seemed then 
the sport of an evil dream. There was something 
strange and unwonted in the noise of arms which 
disturbed the approaches of this chateau, the calm 
and majestic necropolis of absolute monarchy, whose 
chapel seemed, as one might say, to be. its cata- 
falque ! 

Even in those cruel days whose souvenirs will 
never be effaced from my memory, I was incessantly 
haunted by the shade of Louis XIV. I had at the 
time a desire to revisit his apartments. They were 
partially occupied by the personnel of the Ministry 
of Justice and the Assembly Committees. But the 
chamber of the great King had been respected, and 
no functionary had ventured to transform the sanc- 
tuary of roj^alty into an office. In our democratic 
century I did not contemplate without respect this 
chamber where the sovereign par excellence died like 
a king and a Christian. What reflections did not 



INTEODUCTION 



the incomparable Gallery of Mirrors arouse in me! 
At intervals of several days it had been a hall of 
triumph, an ambulance, and a dormitory. There, 
surrounded by all the German princes, our conqueror 
had proclaimed the new German Empire. There the 
wounded Prussians of Buzenval had been carried. 
There the deputies of the National Assembly had 
slept in the early days of their coming to Versailles. 
Sad vicissitudes of destiny! This glittering gal- 
lery, this asylum of monarchical splendors, this place 
of ecstasy, of apotheosis, where the pencil of Lebrun 
has revived the splendors of paganism and mythology, 
this modern Olympus where the imagination evokes 
so many brilliant phantoms, where French aristocracy 
comes to life again with its elegance and pride, its 
luxury and courage, this gallery of fetes which has 
been crossed by so many great men, so many famous 
beauties, in what painful circumstances, alas! was 
it granted me to revisit it. From one of the win- 
dows I saw that superb view in which Louis XIV. 
perceived nothing which was not himself; for this 
garden, created by him, filled the entire horizon. 
My eyes rested on this vanquished nature; these 
waters brought hither by dint of art, and gushing in 
none but regular designs; on this vegetable architec- 
ture which prolongs and completes the architecture 
of stone and marble; on these shrubs which grow 
with docility under line and square. I compared 
the harmonious regularity of the park to the inco- 
herent art of revolutionary epochs, and at the mo- 



THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. 



ment when the star which Louis XIV. had taken 
for his device was about to sink below the horizon, 
like the symbol of departed royalty, I said to my- 
self: This sun will reappear to-morrow as radiant as 
superb. O France, will it be the same with thy 
glory? 

I was then preoccupied with him whom Pelisson 
styled the visible miracle, the potentate in whose 
honor the possibilities of marble, bronze, and incense 
were exhausted, and who, to use one of Bossuet's 
expressions, has not even had possession of his 
sepulchre. Has God, I asked myself, pardoned him 
that Asiatic pride which made him a sort of Belshaz- 
zar or Christian Nebuchadnezzar? What notion does 
the sovereign who sang with tears of emotion the 
hymns composed in his honor by Quinault, now 
entertain of earthly grandeurs? Is his soul still 
affected by our interests, our passions, or is this 
world a grain of sand, an atom in the immense uni- 
verse, too paltry to win attention from those who 
have fathomed the mysteries of eternity ? What does 
the great King think of his Versailles, the temple of 
absolute royalty, which was to be its tomb before 
time should have darkened its gilded ceilings? 
What is his opinion of our discords, our miseries, 
and our humiliations ? He who retained so bitter a 
memory of the troubles of the Fronde, what judg- 
ment does he pass on the excesses of existing democ- 
racy ? Did his French and royal soul shudder when, 
in this hall decorated with pictures of his triumphs, 



INTBOBTJCTION 



the new master of Strasbourg and Metz restored that 
empire of Germany which France had taken centuries 
to destroy? What a contrast between our reverses 
and the superb frescoes which adorn the ceiling! 
Victory extends its rapid wings. Renown blows 
its trumpet. Borne upon a cloud and followed by 
Terror, Louis XIV. holds the thunderbolt in his 
hands. The Rhine, which had been resting on its 
urn, rises in amazement at the speed with which the 
monarch traverses the waters, and drops its helm 
through fright. Conquered cities are personified as 
weeping captives. This wounded lion is Spain; 
Germany is that eagle flung to earth. Even while 
gazing mournfully at these dazzling and ostentatious 
paintings, I recalled these words of Massillon: 
" What remains to us of these great names which 
formerly played so brilliant a part in the universe ? 
We know what they were during the little interval 
their splendor lasted, but who knows what they are 
in the eternal region of the dead?" 

With my mind full of these thoughts I descended 
that marble staircase at the head of which Louis 
XIV. had awaited the aged Conde, enfeebled by 
years and wounds, and mounting it but slowly : " Do 
not hurry yourself, cousin," said the monarch to him, 
" one cannot go up very fast when, like you, he is 
burdened by so many laurels." 

In the evening I wished to see again the statue of 
the great King whose memory had so keenly im- 
pressed me throughout the day. The night was 



THE COUBT OF LOUIS XIV. 



serene. Its sweet and meditative beauty inspired 
regret for the furies and disturbances of men. Its 
silence was interrupted by the noise of the fratrici- 
dal artillery which thundered in the distance. It 
seemed to be in honor of Louis XIV. that the senti- 
nels mounted guard in this place where he had so 
often reviewed his troops. By the light of the stars 
I contemplated the majestic statue of him who was 
more than a king. On his colossal horse he ap- 
peared to me like the glorious personification of the 
right which has been called divine. 

Republican or monarchical, France should disown 
no part of a past like this. The history of such a 
sovereign can but inspire her with lofty ideas, with 
sentiments worthy of her and of him as well. He 
struggled to the last against the powers in coalition, 
and when that unique word, the King, was pro- 
nounced in Europe, every one knew what monarch 
was intended. Ah ! that statue is truly the image of 
the man accustomed to conquer, to dominate, and to 
reign, of the potentate who overcame rebellion more 
easily with a glance than Richelieu with the axe. 

Let the leaders of the revolutionary school try in 
vain to scratch this imperishable bronze with their 
puny nails. The mud they would like to fling at 
the monument will not even reach its pedestal. 
That night when the cannons of the Commune were 
answering those of Mont-VaMrien, the statue seemed 
to me more imposing than usual. One might have 
thought it animated like that of the Commander. 



INTRODUCTION 



The gesture was somehow haughtier and more im- 
perious than in less troublous times. Staff in hand, 
the great King, looking toward Paris, seemed to be 
saying to the insurgent city, like the marble guest 
to Don Juan: Repent. 



II 



The profound impression which was made on me 
by Versailles during the days of the Commune is 
far from having been weakened since that moment. 
Very unlooked-for circumstances caused the Queen's 
apartments to be occupied more than a year by the 
political administration of the Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs. My modest work-table was placed for a year 
at the end of the hall of the Grand-Couvert, opposite 
the picture which represents the Doge Imperiali 
humbling himself before Louis XIV., and I had 
time to reflect on the strange vicissitudes, the ca- 
prices of destiny, in consequence of which the 
employees of the Ministry, among whom I was, 
had been camped, as it were, in the middle of these 
legendary halls. 

The five rooms which compose the Queen's apart- 
ment all possess importance from the historic point 
of view. The most curious souvenirs attach to each 
of them. You have just ascended the marble stair- 
case. There is a door at your right, which you 
enter. It is the hall of the Queen's guards. It 
was here, at six o'clock in the morning of October 



8 THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. 

6, 1789, that the body-guards, victims of popular 
fury, defended so courageously the entry to Marie 
Antoinette's apartment against a band of assassins. 
The next hall is that of the Grand-Couvert, where 
the queens dined ceremoniously in company with 
the kings. These formal banquets took place sev- 
eral times a week, and the public were admitted to 
be spectators of them. 

Marie Antoinette had submitted to this barbarous 
custom not merely when Queen, but also when 
Dauphiness. "The Dauphin dined with her," says 
Madame Campan in her Memoirs, " and each house- 
hold of the royal family had its public dinner every 
day. The ushers admitted everybody who was neatly 
dressed ; this spectacle delighted the provincials ; at 
the dinner hours one met nobody on the staircases 
but honest folks who, after having seen the Dauphi- 
ness eat her soup, were going to see the princes eat 
their boiled beef, and who would then run breath- 
lessly to see Mesdames eat their dessert." 

Next to the hall of the Grand-Couvert comes the 
Salon of the Queen. The sovereign's drawing-room 
was held here, and the presentations made. Her 
seat was placed at the foot of the hall, on a platform 
covered with a canopy, the screw-rings of which 
may still be seen in the cornice opposite the win- 
dows. Here shone the famous beauties of the court 
of Louis XIV. before the King took to confining 
himself to Madame de Maintenon's apartments. 
Hither came incessantly President H^nault and the 



INTRODUCTION 



Duke de Luynes to chat with that amiable and good 
Marie Leczinska in whom every one took pleasure 
in recognizing the virtues of a woman of the middle 
classes, the manners of a great lady, and the dignity 
of a queen. Here Marie Antoinette, the sovereign 
with the figure of a nymph, the gait of a goddess on 
the clouds, the sweet yet imperious aspect befitting 
the daughter of Caesars, received, with that royal air 
of protection and benevolence, that enchanting pres- 
tige the wondrous memory of which foreigners car- 
ried throughout Europe. 

The next room is that which evokes more mem- 
ories than all the others. Perhaps there is in no 
other palace a hall so adapted to impress the imagi- 
nation. It is the Queen's bed-chamber, the cham- 
ber where two queens have died, Marie Th^rese 
and Marie Leczinska, and two dauphinesses, the 
Dauphiness of Bavaria and the Duchess of Bur- 
gundy, — the chamber where nineteen princes and 
princesses of the blood have been born, among them 
two kings, Philip V., King of Spain, and Louis 
XV., King of France, — the chamber which for more 
than a century beheld the great joys and supreme 
agonies of the ancient monarchy. 

This chamber has been occupied by six women: 
first by the virtuous Marie Th^r^se, who was in- 
stalled there May 6, 1682, and breathed her last sigh 
there, July 30, of the following year; afterwards by 
the wife of the Grand Dauphin, the Bavarian Dauphi- 
ness, who died there April 20, 1690, at the age of 



10 THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. 

twenty-nine ; then by the charming Ducliess of Bur- 
gundy, who entering it on her arrival at Versailles, 
brought into the world there three princes of whom 
only the last one lived and reigned under the title 
of Louis XV., and died there, February 12, 1712, at 
the age of twenty-six ; next by Marie Anne Victoire, 
Infanta of Spain, who was affianced to the young 
King of France, and who lived there from June, 
1722, until April, 1725, when the projected marriage 
was broken off; next by the pious Marie Leczinska, 
who was installed in this chamber December 1, 1725, 
gave birth there to her ten children, lived there dur- 
ing a reign of forty-three years, and died there June 
24, 1768, surrounded by universal veneration; and 
finally by the most poetic of all women, by her who 
resumes in herself all majesties and all sorrows, all 
triumphs and all humiliations, all joys and all tears, 
by her whose very name inspires emotion, tenderness, 
and respect, — by Marie Antoinette. 

During a period of nineteen years, from 1770 to 
1789, she occupied this chamber. Here were born 
her four children. Here she came near dying, De- 
cember 20, 1778, when bringing her first daughter, 
the future Duchess of Angouleme, into the world. 
Custom demanded numerous witnesses at a sover- 
eign's lying-in. An ancient and barbarous etiquette 
authorized the people to enter the King's palace 
under such circumstances. From early morning the 
approaches to the chateau, the gardens, the galleries 
of the Mirrors and the GEil-de-Bceuf, the Salons, and 



INTBODUCTION 11 



the very chamber of the Queen, had been invaded by 
an indiscreet and noisy crowd. Ragged chimney- 
sweepers climbed upon the furniture and clung to 
the draperies. This tumult increased Marie Antoi- 
nette's sufferings. She lost consciousness and for 
three-quarters of an hour could not be revived. The 
stifling atmosphere of the room made the danger still 
greater. The windows had been listed on account 
of the season. Louis XVI. , with a strength which 
nothing but his affection for Marie Antoinette could 
have given him, succeeded in opening them, al- 
though they had been fastened together by bands of 
paper from top to bottom. The Queen came to her- 
self, and her husband presented her the newly born 
Princess. "Poor little one," she said to her, "you 
were not desired, but you shall not be less dear. A 
son would have belonged more especially to the State ; 
you will be mine, you shall have all my attention ; 
you will share my happiness and lessen my troubles." 

It was here also that the two sons of the Martyr 
King and Queen saw the light of day: the one, born 
October 22, 1781, died June 4, 1789, at the begin- 
ning of the Revolution; the other, born March 27, 
1785, under the title of Duke of Normandy, was 
afterwards styled Louis XVII. 

In this truly memorable chamber began the long 
death agony of French royalty. Marie Antoinette 
was sleeping here on the morning of October 6, 1789, 
when she was awakened by the insurrection. At the 
further end of the chamber, underneath the panel on 



12 THE COUBT OF LOUIS XIV. 

which now hangs Madame Lebrun's portrait of the 
Queen, there is a little door which led, through an 
anteroom, to the (Eil-de-Bceuf, and thence to the 
King's apartments. Through it the unhappy Queen, 
menaced by the rioters who assassinated the body- 
guards, escaped to seek refuge near Louis XVI. A 
few minutes later, she left Versailles, never more to 
see it. Since then, destiny has not permitted any 
woman to occupy the apartments of the Queen. 

The year I spent in these rooms, so full of souve- 
nirs, has left a strong and serious impression on my 
mind. Many a time, in winter days, at the hour 
when lights were brought, I seemed to see, like 
graceful phantoms, the illustrious women who have 
loved, wept, and suffered in this abode. Between 
the dead and the living there is more intercourse 
than people suppose; I have always believed that 
celebrated personages do not lose sight, from the 
height of the eternal spheres, of those who evoke 
their memory while essaying, as it were, to resusci- 
tate them. Then these verses of Lamartine seemed 
to reach my ears like a faint, mysterious echo : — 

" Ah ! si c'est vous, ombres cheries, 
Loin de la foule, et loin du bruit, 
Revenez ainsi, chaque nuit, 
Vous melez h. mes reveries." ^ 



1 Ah ! if it be you, dear shades, 
Far from the crowd, and far from noise, 
Eeturn thus every night. 
And mingle with my reveries. 



INTRODUCTION 13 



I recalled likewise the striking words of a priest, 
P^re Gratry : " Does not the human race permit itself 
to say at present that the dead address detailed dis- 
courses to us by a conventional cipher composed of 
physical shocks on wood? Shall we not abandon 
these puerile illusions in order to cling to the sacred 
foundation of presentiment and faith which lends a 
certain credit to such chimeras? The human race 
feels and comprehends that all connection cannot be 
broken off between us and those who preceded us." 

The society of the dead consoles the griefs caused 
by that of the living, and there are fewer deceptions 
beyond the tomb than on this side of it. During my 
stay at Versailles, I became especially impassioned 
for the two women who had enchanted two different 
epochs, the Duchess of Burgundy and Marie Antoi- 
nette. Both of them paid dear for the brief 6clat of 
their triumph : one by an untimely death which the 
affrighted imaginations of her contemporaries were 
inclined to attribute to the effects of poison; the 
other by captivit}'- and execution. It seems a law of 
destiny that all which goes beyond a certain medium 
in point of grandeur and prestige shall soon be 
expiated by exceptional calamities. Suffering is the 
inevitable chastisement of all who become conspicu- 
ous, as if the human creature were as little made for 
glory as for happiness. Ah! how many times I 
have been charmed, moved, fascinated, by these two 
dauphinesses who were the ravishing personification 
of grace and youth and beauty! I seemed to see 



14 THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. 

their faces. I thought I heard their voices. It 
seemed a salutary proximity. 

This kind of dwelling with illustrious shades; 
this strange and unlooked-for dwelling in rooms 
forever famous; this long contemplation of a past 
full of instruction and of charm ; this constant and 
involuntary evocation of figures poetic beyond all 
others, — in a word, this whole assemblage of circum- 
stances, both singular and striking, inspired me with 
the first idea of the work I begin to-day. The ad- 
vice of my dear master and friend, M. Feuillet de 
Conches ; my conversations with the eminent curator 
of the Museum of Versailles, M. Eudore Souli^ ; the 
assiduous reading of the learned work which this 
indefatigable investigator has published under the 
title of Notice^ — all confirmed me in my resolve, and 
I have attempted to sketch the heroines who may be 
called the Women of Versailles. 

Doubtless their history is known. I have no pre- 
tension to write new biographies of Queen Marie 
Th^r^se, the Marquise de Montespan, Madame de 
Maintenon, the mother of the regent, the Duchess of 
Burgundy, the Duchess of Berry, the sisters de Nesle, 
the Marquise de Pompadour, Madame Dubarry, the 
Princess de Lamballe, Madame Elisabeth. But I 
desire, without describing their entire career, to 
give an account of the part they played at Ver- 
sailles, to mention with exactness the apartments 
they occupied there, to outline their daily existence 
in detail, to restore patiently the minutiae of eti- 



INTMODUCTION 



quette, to indicate what may be termed, to employ 
one of Saint-Simon's expressions, the mechanism of 
court life. 

What I wish to attempt is the history of the cha- 
teau of Versailles by means of the women who 
dwelt there from 1682, the epoch when Louis XIV. 
definitely fixed his residence there, until October 
6, 1789, the fatal day when Louis XVI. and Marie 
Antoinette left it to return no more. Few periods 
are so curious to study as this one of a hundred and 
seven years. The sanctuary of absolute monarchy 
was to be its tomb, and the theatre of apotheoses was 
destined to be also that of humiliations and afflic- 
tions. 

It is not merely the ancient memoirs, those of 
Dangeau, Saint-Simon, the Princess Palatine, and 
Madame de Caylus, for the reign of Louis XIV. ; 
those of the Duke de Luynes, the advocates Barbier 
and Marais, of Duclos and Madame du Hausset, for 
that of Louis XV. ; of Baron de Bezenval, Madame 
Campan, Count de S^gur, and Baroness Oberkirch, 
for that of Louis XVL, to which we shall recur in 
this labor. We shall also make use of the patient 
investigations of modern science, the researches of 
Sainte-Beuve, De Noailles, Lavall^e, Walckenaer, 
Feuillet de Conches, Le Roi, Souli^, Rousset, Pierre 
Clement, Campardon, Goncourt, d'Arneth, Lescure, 
and many historians, many distinguished critics. 
Assuredly, there are many persons who are thoroughly 
acquainted with all these historic treasures. I have 



16 THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. 

no thought of instructing such erudite persons, and 
I know very well that I am but the obscure disciple 
of these masters. 

But perhaps there are some worldly people who 
will not blame me for having studied so many works 
on their behalf, seeking through the women of the 
courts of three kings the resurrection of a past which 
present struggles cannot banish from our minds. 
My desire will be to repeople these deserted halls, to 
make the procession of the dead file by, to sum up 
briefly the lessons of morality, history, psychology, 
and religion which issue from the most grandiose of 
earthly palaces. May the women of Versailles be to 
me so many Ariadnes in this marvellous labyrinth ! 

Ill 

Neither Mazarin's nieces nor la grande Made- 
moiselle, neither Henrietta of England nor the 
Duchesses of La Vallidre and Fontanges, should be 
considered as women of Versailles. At the period 
when these heroines were shining in all their splen- 
dor, Versailles was not yet the official residence of 
the court and the seat of government. We do not 
begin this study until 1682, the year when Louis 
XIV., quitting Saint-Germain, his habitual abode, 
established himself definitively in the residence 
which he preferred. 

During a century — from 1682 to 1789 — how 
many curious womanly figures will appear upon this 



INTRODUCTION 17 



radiant scene! Wlio.t vicissitudes in their desti- 
nies! What singularities and contrasts in their 
characters! 'Tis the good Queen Marie Th^r^se, 
gentle, virtuous, resigned, making herself loved 
and respected by all honest people. 'Tis the imperi- 
ous mistress, the proud sultana, the woman of bril- 
liant, mocking, cutting wit, whose court is "the 
centre of pleasures, of fortune, of hope and of terror 
to the ministers and generals of the army, and of 
humiliation to all France," the haughty, the all- 
powerful Marquise de Montespan. 

'Tis the woman whose character is an enigma and 
whose life a romance, who has known by turns all 
the extremities of good and evil fortune, and who, 
with more rectitude than openness of heart, more 
justice than grandeur, has at least the merit of hav- 
ing reformed the life of a man whose very passions 
had been extolled as if divine: Madame de Main- 
tenon. 'Tis the Princess Palatine, the wife of Mon- 
sieur the King's brother, the mother of the future 
regent, ugly, correct in morals, cynical in the ex- 
pressions of her correspondence, a frantic German, 
railing at her new country, impersonating Satire at 
the side of Apotheosis, exaggerating in her letters the 
rage of an Alcestis in petticoats, rustic and almost 
Biogenic, but witty, more pitiless, more caustic, more 
vehement than Saint-Simon himself, strange woman 
of the brusque, impetuous style — the style which, 
as Sainte-Beuve says, has a beard on its chin, and of 
which one can hardly say, when it is translated from 



18 THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. 

German into French, whether it most resembles 
Rabelais or Luther. 

'Tis the Duchess of Burgundy, the sylph, the 
siren, the enchantress of the old King, the Duchess 
of Burgundy, whose premature death was the signal 
for the last agony of a court once so dazzling. 

Then, under Louis XV., 'tis the sisters De Nesle 
who are infuriated for the heart of the young King, 
and who sometimes wrangle over their conquest, and 
sometimes unite their forces to reign in common. 
'Tis the virtuous, the sympathetic Marie Leczinska 
who plays the same honorable but minor part with 
Louis XV. that Marie Th^rdse had done with Louis 
XIV. 'Tis the Marquise de Pompadour who, in 
spite of the subtlety of her intelligence and the 
power of her attractions, always remains a parvenue, 
a magician accustomed to all the enchantments, all 
the marvels, all the refinements of elegance, but who, 
according to Voltaire, her apologist and courtier, is 
after all nothing more than a sort of grisette made 
for the opera and the seraglio. 

'Tis Madame Dubarry, a low courtesan disguised 
as a countess, and destined by the irony of fate to 
shake the foundations of the throne of Saint Louis, 
of Henry IV., and of Louis XIV. Then, under the 
reign which is not the epoch of scandal and which 
is yet that of expiation, 'tis Madame Elisabeth, a 
nature essentially French, displaying not merely 
courage but gaiety in the most horrible catastrophes, 
Madame Elisabeth, the angel that heaven caused tc 



INTB OB UCTION 1 9 



appear in the revolutionary hell; 'tis the Princess 
de Lamballe, the gracious and touching heroine of 
friendship and duty; 'tis Marie Antoinette, whose 
mere name is more pathetic, more eloquent, than 
all words. 

In the careers of these women what historical 
instructions, and also what lessons in psychology 
and morals there are! What could make us better 
understand the court, "that region where joys are 
visible but false, and vexations hidden but real," 
the court "which does not give contentment and 
which does prevent its being found elsewhere " ? ^ 
Do not all the women of Versailles say to us: 
"The condition which is apparently the happiest 
has secret bitternesses which corrupt all its felicity. 
The throne is like the lowest place in being the 
seat of torments ; superb palaces hide cruel anxieties 
like the roofs of the poor and the laborious, and, 
lest our exile should become too pleasing to us, 
we feel everywhere and always that something is 
wanting to our happiness." ^ 

A portrait by Mignard, engraved by Nanteuil, 
represents the Duchess de La Valli^re with her chil- 
dren : Mademoiselle de Blois and the Count de Ver- 
mandois. She looks pensive, and is holding in her 
hand a reed pipe at the end of which floats a soap- 
bubble, with these words : Thus passes the glory of 



1 La Bruyere, De la cour. 

2 Massillon, Sermon sur les afflictions. 



20 THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV. 

the world. Sic transit gloria mundi. Might not 
this be the device of all the heroines of Versailles ? 

The general impression arising from history is 
that of melancholy. The life of every celebrated 
woman is a commentary on Fontaine's line; — 

" M Tor ni la grandeur ne nous rendent heureux." ^ 

All is brilliant on the surface, all gloomy in 
the depths. The court beauties cannot dispel black 
care by waving their fans. There are more lees 
than nectar in their golden banqueting-cups. Their 
paint does not hide their pallor, and tears often 
flow in torrents under their masks. Just as splen- 
did mausoleums hide the worms of the sepulchre 
beneath their ornaments of bronze and marble, so 
these sad hearts, garmented with brocade and gold, 
are abodes of secret tortures and excruciating ago- 
nies. They can all say with Madame de Sdvign^, 
who was nevertheless rich, honored, brilliant, and 
seemingly happy: "I find death so terrible that I 
hate life more because it leads me thither than be- 
cause of the thorns which bestrew it. Will you tell 
me then that I must wish to live forever ? Not at 
all ; but if my opinion had been asked, I would much 
rather have died in my nurse's arms; that would 
have rid me of many ennuis, and would have given 
me heaven very surely and very easily. "^ 

1 Neither gold nor grandeur makes us happy. 

2 Madame de S^vig-ne, Letter of March 16, 1672. 



INTRODUCTION 21 



Apropos of tlie death of the Queen of Spain, the 
Princess Palatine, wife of the brother of Louis XIV. , 
wrote : " I hear and see every day so many villanous 
things that it disgusts me with life. You have good 
reason to say that the good Queen is now happier 
than we are, and if any one would do me, as to her 
and her mother, the service of sending me in twenty- 
four hours from this world to the other, I would cer- 
tainly bear them no ill will." ^ 

Madame de Montespan was ill at ease even before 
that hour of great expiations when she was obliged, 
trembling with rage, to descend the marble staircase 
of Versailles, never again to mount it. As in the 
fairy tales, grand palaces, carriages with six horses, 
diamonds, and splendid attire sprang up under the 
feet of the resplendent favorite. And yet at the 
same time, Madame de S^vignd, always a skilled 
observer, wrote concerning the triumphant mistress 
who was the object of all favors and idolatries : " The 
attachment is still extreme, enough has been made 
of it to annoy the cur^ and every one else, but per- 
haps not enough for her, for there is something sad 
underneath her external triumph. "^ 

The rival who, contrary to all expectation, sup- 
planted Madame de Montespan; the prodigiously 
clever woman who, according to a very just expres- 
sion of M. Capefigue, was for so many years the sick- 



1 Letters of the Princess Palatine, March 20, 1689, 
» Madame de S6vign6, Letter of July 31, 1675, 



22 TSE COUBT OF LOUIS XIV. 

nurse of a soul worn out with pride, love, and glory ; 
Madame de Maintenon wrote in the midst of her 
own splendor to Madame de La Maisonfort: "Why 
cannot I give you my experience ! Why cannot I 
make you see the ennui which devours the great, and 
the troubles that fill their days! Do you not see 
that I am dying of sadness in a fortune which could 
not be easily imagined? I have been young and 
pretty; I have enjoyed pleasures; I have spent years 
in intellectual intercourse ; I have arrived at favor, 
and I protest to you, my dear child, that all condi- 
tions leave a frightful void." 

Again it is Madame de Maintenon who said to her 
brother, Count d'Aubigne: "I can hold out no 
longer; I would like to be dead." It is she who, 
summing up all the phases of her surprising ca- 
reer, wrote to Madame de Caylus two years before 
her death : " One atones heavily for the pleasures 
and intoxication of youth. I find, in looking back 
at my life, that, since the age of twenty-two, which 
was the beginning of my fortune, I have not had a 
moment free from sufferings, and that they have 
constantly increased."^ 

The women of the reign of Louis XV". afford no 
fewer subjects for philosophical reflections. These 
pretended mistresses, who in reality are only slaves, 
seem to present themselves one after another like 



1 Letter of Madame de Maintenon to Madame de Caylus, April 
19, 1771. 



INTRODUCTION 23 



humble penitents who come to make their apologies 
to history and, like the primitive Christians, to 
reveal publicly the miseries, vexations, and remorses 
of their souls. They tell us what their doleful suc- 
cesses amounted to. Even while their triumphal 
chariot made its way through a crowd of flatterers, 
their conscience hissed cruel words into their ears. 
Like actresses before a whimsical and variable public, 
they were always fearing lest the applause might 
change into uproar, and it was with terror underly- 
ing their apparent coolness that they continued to 
play their sorry part. 

Do not all the favorites seem to unite in repeating 
to us with Massillon : " Is it not true that the way 
of the world and the passions is yet more painful 
than that of the Gospel, and that the kingdom of 
hell, if one may say so, suffers still more violence 
than that of heaven?" If, among these mistresses 
of the King, there were a single one who had enjoyed 
her shameful triumphs in peace, who had called her- 
self happy in the midst of her luxury and splendor, 
one might have concluded that, from a merely human 
point of view, it is possible to find happiness in 
vice. But no ; there is not even one. The Duch- 
ess de Ch^teauroux and the Marquise de Pompadour 
are not happier than the Duchess de La Valli^re and 
the Marquise de Montespan. " 'O my God,' cried 
Saint Augustine, 'Thou hast ordained it, and it has 
never failed to happen, that every soul that is in dis- 
order shall be its own torment. If we taste in it 



24 THE COUBT OF LOUIS XIV. 

certain moments of felicity, it is an intoxication 
which does not last. The worm of conscience is not 
dead; it is only benumbed. The alienated reason 
presently returns, and with it return bitter troubles, 
gloomy thoughts, and cruel anxieties.' "^ 

Unfortunate victim of a royal caprice, the young 
Duchess de Chateauroux, who lived but a day, " like 
the flowers of the field," condenses into her brief but 
tempestuous career all the miseries and deceptions 
of vanity, all the tortures and anguish of physical 
and moral pain. Madame de Pompadour at the 
height of her favor is steeped in melancholy. Her 
lady's maid, Madame du Hausset, the confidant of 
her perpetual anxieties, said to her with sincere 
commiseration: "I pity you, Madame, while every 
one else is envying you," and the Marquise, satiated 
with false pleasures, tormented with real sufferings, 
remarked bitterly : " The sorceress said I would have 
time to acknowledge my faults before I die ; I be- 
lieve it, for I shall perish of nothing but chagrin. " 

When she dies she is no more regretted by Louis 
XV. than Mademoiselle de La Vallidre and Madame 
de Montespan had been by Louis XIV. From one 
of the windows of Versailles, during a frightful 
storm, the King saw the carriage which was taking 
the favorite's coffin to Paris. " The Marquise will 
not have fine weather for her journey," said he. 
Hardly had she gone down into the grave when the 

1 Massillon, Panegyrique de Sainte Madeleine. 



INTBODUCTION 25 



poor dead woman was forgotten by all. The Queen 
herself remarked it when she wrote to President 
Henault: "Here there is no more question of her 
who is no more than if she had never existed. Such 
is the worlds it is not worth the trouble of loving it." 
The destinies of the heroines of Versailles are 
not interesting solely from the moral point of view, 
as subjects of philosophical study, and sources of 
Christian reflections. In their historical relations 
also they have what may be called a symbolical im- 
portance. Certain of these women sum up, in fact, 
a whole society, personify an entire epoch. Madame 
de Montespan, the superb, luxuriant, ample beauty, 
good to show to all the ambassadors; Madame de 
Montespan, the grande dame, proud of her birth, her 
charms, her wit, her riches, her magnificence; the 
woman whose terrible railleries made her as much 
feared as she was admired, so much so, in fact, that 
the courtiers said they dared not pass under her win- 
dows for fear of being shot at; the ostentatious, 
dazzling mistress whom the ancients would have 
represented as Cybele, carrying Versailles upon her 
forehead, is she not the very incarnation of haughty 
and triumphant France at the culminating point of 
the reign of Louis XIV., that France which resusci- 
tates the pomps of paganism and envelops the radi- 
ant sovereign whom it idolizes in clouds of incense ? 
But the pride of the favorite will be punished like 
that of her royal lover, and for her as for him humil- 
iations will succeed to triumphs. 



26 THE COUBT OF LOUIS XIV. 

The rays of the sun have no longer the same 
splendor. The royal star which is declining has 
lost the ardor of its fires. A sincere but sometimes 
rather narrow devotion comes after those superabun- 
dant sins which, to use Tertullian's expression, wish 
to possess all the light and knowledge of heaven. 
Madame de Maintenon, with her temperate character 
and style, her respect for order and the proprieties, 
her piety which has just a hint of ostentation, is the 
living symbol of the new court in which religion 
replaces voluptuousness. But at the side of this 
wisdom of repentant age, this reaction of austerity 
against pleasure, there is still the contrast of youth. 
'Tis the Duchess of Burgundy who represents this 
protest of gaiety against sadness, of spring against 
winter, of freedom of manners against the restric- 
tions of etiquette. 

After Louis XIV., the Kegency. After compres- 
sion, scandal. The new epoch is troublous, licen- 
tious, dissolute. Is not the Duchess of Berry, so 
fantastic, so capricious, so passionate, its very 
image? As to the favorites of Louis XV., their sad 
history marks out for us the stages of humiliation 
and the moral decadence of absolute power. At 
first the King takes his mistresses from among the 
great ladies, then from the middle classes, lastly 
from the women of the people. He descends from 
the Duchess de Ch^teauroux to the Marquise de 
Pompadour, from the Marquise de Pompadour to 
Madame Dubarry. There is a gradual diminutipi^ 



INTRODUCTION 27 



of prestige and dignity. Adultery derogates. Vice 
throws off all manner of disguise. And yet, even 
under the reign of Louis XV., patriarchal manners, 
honest and truly Christian sentiments, characters 
which do honor to human nature, may here and there 
be found. Queen Marie Leczinska is like the epit- 
ome of these virtuous types. Her domestic hearth 
is near the boudoir of the favorites, and it is she 
who preserves for the court the last traditions of 
decency and decorum. 

Last of all comes Marie Antoinette, the woman 
who, in the most striking and tragic of all destinies, 
represents not solely the majesty and the griefs of 
royalty, but all the graces and all the agonies, all 
the joys and all the sufferings, of her sex. 



THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 
I 

THE CHATEAU OF VEESAILLES 

BEFORE recalling the r61e played by the women 
of Versailles, something must be said of the 
stage on which their destinies were fulfilled, and the 
miraculous transformation by which a dismal and 
gloomy spot, full of quicksands and marshes, with 
neither view, water, trees, nor land, was made anew, 
as one may say, in the image of the great King, and 
became a marvel admired by all the world. Like 
those great rivers which at their source are hardly 
more than rivulets, the existence of the palace des- 
tined one day to be so splendid commenced in most 
modest and simple proportions. 

It was in 1624 that Louis XIII. had a hunting- 
meet erected at Versailles on a rising ground pre- 
viously occupied by a windmill. In 1627, at an 
assembly of notables, which met in the Tuileries, 
Bassompierre reproached the King with not com- 
pleting the crown buildings, saying with this in- 
tent: "It is not His Majesty's inclination to build; 

29 



30 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

the finances of the Chamber are not exhausted by his 
sumptuous edifices, unless one would like to re- 
proach him with the wretched chateau of Versailles, 
in the construction of which a private gentleman 
would not take much pride." ^ 

In 1651, eight years after his father's death, Louis 
XIV., then in his thirteenth year, came for the first 
time to Versailles. From childhood he was attached 
to this abode, and several years later he selected it 
as the site of magnificent festivities. In the month 
of May, 1664, he caused the performance there of the 
Plaisirs de VUe enchantee^ diversions borrowed from 
Ariosto's poem, and towards the execution of which 
Benserade and President de P^rigny contributed the 
recitations in verse, Moliere and his troop the 
comedy, Lulli the music and the ballets, and 
the Italian mechanician Vigarani the decorations, 
illuminations, and fireworks. 

May 7, the first day of the fStes, there was tilting 
at the ring in presence of the two queens, in a 
grassy circle formed at the entrance of the great alley 
now called the green carpet, tapis vert. The youth- 
ful Louis XIV., wearing a costume sparkling with 
all the crown diamonds, represented the Paladin 
Roger in the island of Alcina. After the tourney, 
in which he was the victor, Flora and Apollo came 
to congratulate him in chariots drawn by nymphs, 



1 See, on the origins of the palace, the curious and learned work 
published by M. Le Roi, under the title, Louis XIIL et Versailles. 



THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES 31 

satyrs, and dryads. At the banquet, Time, the 
Hours, and the Seasons waited on the guests, who 
were shaded by thickets of lilacs, and coppices of 
myrtles and roses. The next day, May 8, the 
Princesse d^Mide, a piece in which Moli^re played 
the parts of Lyciscas and Moron, was represented 
on a stage erected in the middle of the same great 
alley; May 9, a ballet in the palace of Alcides, 
which simulated its conflagration; May 10, a course 
de tetes in the castle moats ; May 11, a representation 
of Molidre's Fdeheux; May 12, a lottery in which 
the prizes were pieces of furniture, silverware, and 
precious stones, and in the evening, Tartuffe ; May 
13, Mariage force ; May 14, departure of the King 
and court for Fontainebleau. Mademoiselle de La 
Valliere had been the heroine of these fetes, at 
which Moliere extolled the favorite's amours in 
presence of the Queen herself. 

Versailles was not yet the royal residence, but 
Louis XIV. came there from time to time to spend 
some days, and occasionally several weeks, espe- 
cially when he wished to dazzle eyes and fascinate 
imaginations by the brilliancy of these ostentatious 
festivities which resembled apotheoses. 

September 14, 1665, there was a great hunt at 
Versailles, when the Queen, Madame Henrietta of 
England, with Mademoiselle de Montpensier and 
Mademoiselle d'AleuQon, rode in amazonian cos- 
tumes ; in February, 1667, a tournament which over- 
passed the limits of magnificence. 



32 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

The Gazette takes pains to describe the cortege 
of court ladies, "all admirably equipped and on 
selected horses, led by Madame in the most superb 
vest, and seated on a white horse with trappings of 
brocade sown with pearls and precious stones." 
Following the feminine squadron appeared the Sun- 
King, " not less easily recognized by the lofty mien 
peculiar to him than by his rich Hungarian habit, 
covered with gold and precious stones, his helmet 
with waving plumes, and the spirited horse which 
seemed prouder of carrying so great a monarch than 
of its magnificent trappings and its jewelled saddle- 
cloth. "^ Then followed Monsieur, the King's 
brother, in Turkish costume; then the Duke 
d'Enghien, dressed as an Indian; then the other 
noblemen, who formed ten quadrilles. 

July 10, 1668, there were new rejoicings; during 
the day, a representation of the Fetes de V Amour et 
de Bacchus, words by Quinet and music by Lulli, 
and of Greorges Dandin, played by Moliere and his 
troop ; in the evening a banquet and a ball ; at two 
in the morning illuminations. The circumference 
of the parterre of Latona, the grand alley, the ter- 
race, and front of the palace were decorated with 
statues, vases, and chandeliers lighted in an ingeni- 
ous fashion, which made them appear as if glowing 
with interior flames. Rockets crossed each other in 
the air above the chS,teau, and when all these lights 

1 Gazette of 1667. 



THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES 33 

were extinguished, says Fdlibien, in terminating his 
description of the fete, it was perceived that day, 
jealous of the advantages of such a night, had 
begun to dawn. 

September 17, 1672, the King's troop represented 
Moli^re's Femmes savantes at Versailles, who were 
admirSes d^un chacun, says the Crazette. Bourdaloue 
preached the Lenten sermons there from February 
8 to April 19, 1674; July 11, the Malade imaginaire 
of Moliere, who had died the previous year, was 
played there; in August came a series of grand fetes. 
F^libien gives a striking description of the night of 
August 31, 1674, when, under a dark and starless 
sky, a most unheard-of rain of lights suddenly be- 
came visible. All the parterres glittered. The 
grand terrace in front of the chateau was bordered 
with a double row of lights set two feet apart. The 
steps and railings of the horseshoe, all the walls, 
all the fountains, all the reservoirs, shone with 
myriad flames. This pyrotechnic art, this blending 
of fire and flowers and water which made the park 
resemble the garden of Armida, had come from Italy. 
The borders of the grand canal were adorned with 
statues and architectural decorations behind which 
an infinity of lights had been placed to render them 
transparent. The King, the Queen, and all the 
court were on richly ornamented gondolas. Boats 
filled with musicians followed them, and Echo 
repeated the sounds of an enchanted harmony. 

After the next year, great works, begun by Levau 



34 THE WOMEN OF VEESAILLES 

and Dorbay, continued by Jules Hardoin-Mausart, 
were undertaken at Versailles, where Louis XIV. 
wished to take up his permanent residence. What 
motives determined him to abandon the chateau of 
Saint-Germain, where he was born, where he had 
experienced the first sensations of love, that admi- 
rably situated chateau whence one beholds so pic- 
turesque a forest, so beautiful a stream, so vast and 
magnificent a horizon ? Nothing is lacking to Saint- 
Germain, neither woods, waters, nor prospect. Its 
air is keen and salubrious. It seems made to inspire 
great thoughts, and from the heights of that unpar- 
alleled terrace which leans against the forest, one 
contemplates one of the most varied and majestic 
panoramas of the globe. 

Had Louis XIV. expended for the enlargement 
and embellishment of the old chateau (that which is 
still existing) and the new chateau (that which for- 
merly faced the Seine and was destroyed under 
Louis XVL) one half the sums expended on Ver- 
sailles, what an incomparable palace, what a marvel, 
one might have admired! What could not have 
been made of the new chateau of Saint-Germain (of 
which nothing now remains but the pavilion of 
Henry IV.), that elegant chateau whose staircases 
appear from a distance like arabesques in relief 
encrusted upon the side of the hill, and whose five 
successive terraces, adorned with thickets, fountains, 
and parterres of flowers, come down to the Seine at 
Pecq? How could he prefer to such a residence 



THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES 35 

and such a landscape, an obscure manor built on 
ungrateful soil, surrounded by muddy ponds, with- 
out views, without water, on an estate which, in- 
stead of being favored by nature, it was necessary 
to tyrannize over and subdue by force of art and 
riches ? 

Was it, as has been said, the distant view of the 
steeple of Saint-Denis, the final term of royal gran- 
deur, which rendered Saint-Germain so antipathetic 
to Louis XIV. ? Did that steeple which from the 
horizon seemed to be saying to him : " Memento homo 
quia pulvis es et in pulverem reverteris, Remember, 
man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt 
return," rebuke the pride of life and omnipotence 
which overflowed in him? Such a thought seems to 
us pusillanimous. It would be unworthy of the 
great King. We incline rather to the belief that 
what Louis XIV. found displeasing in Saint-Ger- 
main was the memory of the time when, driven from 
Paris by the troubles of the Fronde, he had been 
taken by night to the old chateau. Doubtless he 
disliked to have the capital which had insulted his 
childhood constantly in view from his window. 

To tear himself away from an importunate souve- 
nir; to efface completely, even in thought, the last 
vestiges of rebellious acts against royal authority; 
to choose a residence which was nothing, in order to 
make of it the most radiant of palaces; to take 
pleasure in this transformation as being the triumph 
of pride, of strength, of will; to create all for him- 



36 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

self, architecture, gardens, fountains, horizon; to 
constrain nature to bend beneath the yoke and avow 
itself vanquished, like the revolution, — such was 
the dream of Louis XIV. , and this dream he realized. 

From 1675 to 1682, the works at Versailles were 
carried on with astonishing rapidity. The grand 
apartments of the King and the staircase called that 
of the Ambassadors were completed. The Gallery of 
Mirrors was constructed at the spot where a terrace 
occupied the middle of the fagade, on the side of the 
gardens. The south wing, called the Princes' wing, 
was added to the chateau. The buildings to right 
and left of the first court in front of the chateau, 
called the Ministers' wings, were finished. The 
large and small stables were built. 

Finally, in 1681, the chapel was transferred to 
the present site of the Salon of Hercules and the ves- 
tibule below it. April 30, 1684, Francis de Harlay, 
Archbishop of Paris, blessed the chapel, and on the 
6th of May following, Louis XIV. definitively in- 
stalled himself at Versailles.^ 

The King established himself in the very centre 
of the palace. The salon of the Qj^il-de-Bceuf ^ was 
then divided into two rooms: the Bassani chamber, 



1 If one wishes to get an idea of the enlargements of Versailles, 
he has only to look at Van der Meulen's picture in the King's 
ante-chamber (room 121 in M. Souli6's Notice du Musee). This 
picture, numbered 2145, represents Versailles as it was before the 
works undertaken by Louis XIV. 

2 Koom 123 of the Notice du Musee. 



THE CHATEAU OF VERSAILLES 37 

SO called because it contained several paintings by 
that master, where the princes and nobles admitted to 
the sovereign's levee waited; and the former cham- 
ber of Louis XIII., where Louis XIV. slept, from 
1682 to 1701. Adjoining this chamber was the 
grand cabinet where the ceremonies of the levee and 
the couchde took place, where the King gave audi- 
ence to the nuncio and the ambassadors, and received 
the oaths of the chief officials of his household. ^ 
The next room ^ was at this period divided into two. 
That nearest to the King's chamber was called the 
Cabinet of the Council, and in it Louis XIV., with 
his ministers, took the greatest decisions of his 
reign ; the other was called the Cabinet des Termes 
or des Perruques. 

The Queen and the Dauphin were lodged, the one 
on the first story, the other on the ground-floor, in 
the south part of the old chateau of Louis XIII. , 
that which has a view of the orangery and the Swiss 
lake. The Queen's apartments ended through the 
Peace Salon, at the Gallery of Mirrors, the master- 
piece of the new Versailles. At the other extrem- 
ity of the gallery began, with the War Salon, 
the rooms designated as the grand apartments of the 
King, state and reception rooms bearing mytho- 
logical names : halls of Apollo, Mercury, Diana, and 
Venus. 

1 Eoom 124 of the Notice. This room became the bedchamber 
of Louis XIV., and he died there. 

2 Salle du Conseil, No. 125 of the Notice. 



38 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

The governor of the palace and the King's con- 
fessor lodged in the north wing, that which has since 
been rebuilt by the architect Gabriel. Beyond the 
site of the present chapel were placed the legitimated 
children, the princes of Cond^ and of Conti, the 
governor of the Children of France, and a goodly 
number of great officials and chaplains. The Chil- 
dren of France and the Orleans family resided in the 
great south hall, opposite the gardens. Finally, the 
secretaries of State, the ministers of the King's 
household, of foreign affairs, war, and the navy, 
were installed in the two projecting buildings in 
front of which are now placed the statues of cele- 
brated men. These immense constructions, greatly 
subdivided interiorly, served as a habitation for sev- 
eral thousand persons. 

Versailles was finished. With very slight modi- 
fications it offered the same spectacle which it 
presents to-day. Seen from the town side, the 
monument, though grandiose, is incongruous. Its 
composite architecture, the noticeable contrast be- 
tween the brick and the stone, between the primi- 
tive chateau and its immense additions, have a some- 
what astounding character. Seen from the park, on 
the contrary, it is majestic, regular, and supremely 
harmonious. This fagade, say rather these three 
fagades, more than six hundred yards in width and 
having altogether three hundred and seventy-five 
openings into the garden; this projecting building 
where the master dwelt, and which throws out in 



THE ChIteAU of VEBSAILLES 39 

the midst of a long right line wings which seem to 
draw back as if to keep at a respectful distance 5* 
these thickets fashioned into walls of verdure ; these 
reservoirs framed in precious marbles, which seem 
like so many halls in open air, dependent on the 
palace of which they are the complement, — all this 
profoundly impresses the eyes and the mind. 

And yet it has a great defect. Hardly has one 
made a few steps, after descending the first staircase, 
when the chS,teau sinks down and disappears, like 
the sun setting on the coast. Is it not the image 
of that absolute monarchy which, after shedding so 
dazzling a glow, was suddenly to be extinguished 
and disappear from the horizon? Yet in spite of 
this fault of perspective, the edifice has a sort of 
radiant serenity, and never, perhaps, was the gran- 
deur of a man better identified with the splendor of 
a palace. There is an intimate relation between the 
King and his ch&teau. The idol is worthy of the 
temple, the temple of the idol. There is always 
something immaterial, something moral, so to speak, 
in monuments, and they derive their poesy from the 
thought connected with them. For a cathedral, it 
is the idea of God. For Versailles, it is the idea of 
the King. Its mythology, as has been justly re- 
marked, is but a magnificent allegory of which Louis 
XIV. is the reality. It is he always and every- 
where. Fabulous heroes and divinities impart their 
attributes to him or mingle with his courtiers. 

In honor of him, Neptune sheds broadcast the 



40 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

waters which cross in air in sparkling arches. 
Apollo, his favorite symbol, presides over this en- 
chanted world as the god of light, the inspirer of 
the Muses ; the sun of the god seems to pale before 
that of the great King : Nee plurihus impar. Nature 
and art combine to celebrate the glory of the sover- 
eign by a perpetual hosannah. All that generations 
of kings have amassed of pictures, statues, and 
precious movables, is distributed as mere furniture 
in the glittering apartments of the chateau. One 
inhales as it were an odor of incense. The intoxi- 
cating perfumes of luxury and power throw one 
into a sort of ecstasy that makes comprehensible the 
exaltation of this monarch, enthusiastic over him- 
self, who, in chanting the hymns composed in his 
praise, shed tears of admiration. 



II 

LOUIS XIV. AND HIS COUET IN 1682 

WHEN Louis XIV. definitively established his 
residence at Versailles, in 1682, the princi- 
pal women of the court who were installed there 
with him were the Queen, aged forty-four years, 
like himself, born in 1638, married in 1660, long- 
afflicted by her husband's infidelities, and now 
happy in beholding his return to more virtuous 
sentiments; the Dauphiness, a Bavarian princess, 
born in 1660, married in 1680, very feeble in health, 
gentle and melancholy in disposition; the Duchess 
of Orleans, sometimes designated as Madame and 
sometimes as the Princess Palatine, born in 1652, 
married in 1671 to Monsieur, the King's brother, a 
German unable to accustom herself to her new coun- 
try; the Princess de Conti, legitimated daughter of 
Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de La Valli^re, born 
in 1666, married in 1681 to Prince Armand de 
Conti, nephew of the great Cond^, a young woman 
of exceptional grace and beauty ; the two other legit- 
imated daughters of the King, Mademoiselle de 
Nantes, born in 1673, and Mademoiselle de Blois 

41 



42 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

in 1677, who were to marry, some years later, one 
the Duke of Bourbon, and the other the Duke of 
Chartres (the future regent); Madame de Monte- 
span, their mother, then forty-one years old, already 
at the end of her left-handed reign, but still liv- 
ing at court in the double capacity of lady of the 
Queen's palace and the mother of legitimated chil- 
dren, but no longer bearing any sway over either the 
heart or the senses of Louis XIV. ; and finally, 
Madame de Maintenon, already very influential 
under a modest exterior, still beautiful in spite of 
her forty-seven years, on equally good terms with 
both King and Queen, and rewarded, since 1680, 
for the cares she had bestowed, as governess, on the 
children of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan, 
by a place expressly created for her which did not 
bind her to any assiduous service while it gave her 
an honorable position at court: that of second lady- 
in-waiting to the Dauphiness. 

The parts played by the women of Versailles can- 
not be understood without studying beforehand the 
character of the sovereign who was the animating 
spirit of this palace and who strongly impressed him- 
self not merely on his own realm but on all Europe. 
Never has any monarch exercised such a prestige 
over his court; all that shone around him was but 
the pale reflection of this dazzling luminary. It 
was from the Sun-King that each woman borrowed 
lustre, and he must be spoken of before their figures 
are traced. 



LOUIS XIV. AND HIS COURT IN 1682 43 

Whatever one may say, the life of Louis XIV. 
gains on close examination. Defects and qualities 
were alike great in this accomplished type of abso- 
lute monarchy, of royalty by right divine. Louis 
XIV. was not merely majestic, he was amiable. 
Those who surrounded him, the members of his 
family, his ministers, his domestics, loved him. 

This sovereign, intimidating to such a point that, 
according to Saint-Simon, it was necessary to begin 
by accustoming one's self to see him if, in speaking 
with him, one did not wish to run the risk of com- 
ing to a standstill, was nevertheless full of benevo- 
lence and affability. " Never was a man so naturally 
polite, nor with so well-regulated a politeness, nor 
one who better discriminated age, rank, and merit. 
. . . Never did it happen to him to say a disobliging 
thing to any one."^ The Princess Palatine, usually 
so caustic and severe, paid homage to his qualities 
both as man and sovereign. "When the King 
chose," she says in her correspondence, "he was the 
most agreeable and amiable of men. He joked in a 
comical way and pleasantly. . . . Although he 
loved flattery, he often mocked at it himself. . . . 
He knew perfectly well how to content people even 
while refusing their requests; his manners were 
most affable, and he spoke with such politeness that 
it touched their hearts. . . . When he acted on his 
own initiative, he was always good and generous." 



-1 Memoirs of tbe Duke de Saint-Simon. 



THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 



To him pleasure was merely an accessory. 
Throughout his entire reign he never ceased to 
work eight hours every day. He wrote in his 
Memoirs, intended for his son's instruction, that 
for a king not to work was ingratitude and audacity 
towards God, and injustice and tyranny towards 
men. "These conditions of royalty," he added, 
" which may sometimes appear to you hard and vexa- 
tious in so high a place, you would find sweet and 
easy were it a question of arriving thither. . . . 
Nothing will be more fatiguing to you than great 
idleness should you have the misfortune of falling 
into it. Disgusted with affairs in the first place, 
next with pleasures, you will at last be disgusted 
with idleness itself." Work, that is to say duty, 
was a source of incessant satisfaction for the great 
King. " To have one's eyes open over all the earth," 
he wrote in his Memoirs, " to learn incessantly the 
news of all the provinces and all the nations, the 
secrets of all courts, the dispositions and the weak 
points of all princes and all foreign ministers, to be 
informed about an infinity of things of which we 
are supposed to be ignorant, to see all around us 
what people are endeavoring to their utmost to con- 
ceal, to discover the most remote views of our own 
courtiers, — I know not what other pleasure would 
not be abandoned for this one, even if solely moved 
by curiosity." 

Louis XIV. was a supreme artist who played his 
part of king with facility and conviction. He was 



LOUIS XIV. AND HIS COUBT IN 1682 45 

also a poet in action whose existence, formed to strike 
the imagination of his subjects, unrolled itself in an 
uninterrupted series of grand and marvellous deeds ; 
a sovereign enamoured of glory and the ideal, " who 
took a delighted admiration in great battles, in acts 
of heroism and courage, in warlike preparations, in 
the skilfully combined operations of a siege, in the 
terrible affrays of battle, and, in the depths of forests, 
in the noisy tumult of great hunting exploits."^ 

On his deathbed, Louis XIV. accused himself of 
having been too fond of war. He might also have 
accused himself of having been too fond of women. 
Yet he had certain illusions respecting them, and 
sincerely believed that they had never ruled him. 
He boasts as much — wrongly as we believe — in the 
Memoirs he addressed to the Dauphin. "In aban- 
doning our hearts," he wrote, "we must remain 
absolute masters of our minds ; we must make a dis- 
tinction between the tenderness of a lover and the 
resolutions of a sovereign, so that the beauty who 
makes our pleasures shall not be free to speak to us 
concerning our affairs. . . . You know what I have 
said to you many times about the influence of favor- 
ites; that of a mistress is far more dangerous. . . . 
As the prince ought always to be a perfect model of 
virtue, it would be well for him to avoid the frail- 
ties common to the rest of mankind, the more so 
because he is sure that they cannot remain hidden." 

1 Walckenaer, 3Iemoires sur Madame de Sevigne, t. V. 



46 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Louis XIV. did not always succeed in putting 
these beautiful and prudent maxims into practice; 
but, culpable as they were, his amours at all times 
preserved a certain poetic quality. In the midst of 
his splendors, the great King thought the joy of lov- 
ing and of being loved was the supreme happiness. 
Far from wishing to say : Fern, vidi, viei, he courted 
his mistresses patiently. He comprehended their 
scruples, he esteemed their resistance, he honored 
their repentance. Impassioned for love more than 
for pleasure, he remained sentimental in his most 
evanescent attachments. As has been remarked by 
the Princess Palatine, if women wished to please 
him, it was absolutely necessary for them if not to 
love him, at least to pretend to do so. The first 
really profound impression which was made on him 
by Madame de Maintenon was caused by an evidence 
of her sensibility. Seeing that her grief at the death 
of Mademoiselle de Montespan's oldest child had 
made her lose flesh: "She knows how to love," 
said he. "It would be a pleasure to be loved by 
her." 

This sovereign, so often accused of cruel egotism, 
often showed exquisite delicacy of heart. Madame 
de La Fayette, so good a judge in matters of senti- 
ment, says as much in her Memoirs: "The King, 
who is good-hearted, has an extraordinary tender- 
ness, especially for women." He desired to be loved 
by them as much as to possess them. " For him, no 
commerce with them could be lasting which did not 



LOUtS XIV. AND HIS COURT IN 1682 47 

include that of mind and soul.''^ With, his in- 
contestable beauty of face and figure, his majestic 
sweetness, his penetrating, sympathetic voice, his 
chivalrous courtesy, his exquisite politeness toward 
women of every rank, and the supreme elegance of 
manners and language which distinguished him 
among all others as the "King-bee," he would have 
had, even as a private person, the ability to " create 
the greatest disorders of love."^ 

He often discovered that all the fascinations of 
riches, the pomp of thrones, the intoxications of 
pride and power were not worth a kiss, a smile, and 
amidst the magnificence of his Asiatic court he fre- 
quently told himself, like a poet of our own day : — 

"fitre admire n'est rien, Taffau-e est d'etre aime."^ 

Is not the perfume of the violet more charming 
than that of incense, and was not a tender word from 
La Valliere sweeter to his ear and heart than the 
overstrained compliments of his most skilful cour- 
tiers? But the man whom one would love now 
would no longer be Louis, it would be the King. 
By an admirable law of Providence, nothing that is 
really beautiful can be purchased: neither youth, 
health, nor gaiety, neither consciousness, beauty, 
talent nor glory, above all not love. Voluptuous 
pleasure may be bought, and always costs too much, 

1 Walckenaer, Memoires sur Madame de Sevigne, t. V. 

2 Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon. 

8 To be admired is notliing, tlie tiling is to be loved. 



48 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

for voluptuousness is a very petty thing. As to 
love, all the knowledge and all the treasures of love 
cannot acquire it. Louis XIV. is absolute master. 
Doubtless, if the fancy seized him, almost any 
woman would still throw herself at his head. But 
could he find another La Valli^re among all those 
beauties ? 

1682 is the beginning of his repentance, the year 
when the King returns to virtue, when he meditates 
seriously on the advantages of order and duty even 
from the merely human point of view. His last 
sensual passion had been for Mademoiselle de Fon- 
tanges, who died the previous year. "With her was 
extinguished the great flame of the King's amours. 
His affection for Madame de Maintenon will be far 
more intellectual than voluptuous. In that com- 
merce there will be more room for the mind than for 
the body, and the lover will disappear almost entirely 
to give place to the devotee. The tragic destiny of 
Mademoiselle de Fontanges, the rapid honors, atoned 
for so quickly and so painfully, the tabouret as 
duchess, the carriages with six horses, the luxury, 
jewels, splendors, and then the thunderbolt, the 
terrible death after an unfortunate lying-in, the sus- 
picion of poison, the remark of the Abbess de Chelles, 
the favorite's sister, on receiving her icy heart : " This 
heart belonged to God at first ; the world had gained 
it. God has at last resumed what was His, but it 
was not yielded to Him without pain "; all this had 
profoundly impressed the mind of Louis XIV. 



LOUIS XIV. AND EIS COURT IN 1GS2 49 

Since then the words of great preachers had sounded 
more forcibly than usual in his ears, and the voice 
of his conscience spoke more loudly than that of his 
courtiers. 

From the depths of the cloister where she had been 
enclosed eight years already, the retreat and the 
silence of another woman inspired him with pious 
reflections and salutary thoughts. The Duchess de 
La Valliere, now become Sister Louise of Mercy, 
had said that if the King came to her convent, she 
would hide herself so effectually that he could not 
find her.i But Louis XIV., penetrated with admi- 
ration for the repentance of the sinner whose fault 
he had occasioned, no longer desired to trouble the 
calm of the asylum where she had sought refuge from 
both herself and him. When she lost her brother in 
1676, he had sent her word that if he were a good 
enough man to see a Carmelite so pious as she, he 
would go in person to tell her how he regretted the 
loss she had sustained. Louis XIV. has often been 
accused of having completely forgotten the woman 
he had so much loved. It is an unjust reproach, if 
one may credit M. Walckenaer.^ 

According to this judicious critic, La Valliere was 
never more present to the King's thoughts than after 
she had abandoned his court. Never had she ap- 
peared so adorable to him as when the sight of her 



1 Memoirs of the Princess Palatine, 

2 "Walckenaer, Memoires sur Madame de Sevigne, t. V. 



50 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLE8 

had been forbidden him. He joyfully granted all 
she asked, not for herself, but for her relatives, and 
was glad to learn that the Queen and all the court 
gave the pious Carmelite marks of their interest and 
veneration. It was thus that at the foot of the 
altar, Sister Louise of Mercy asked from God the 
conversion of Louis XIV. and obtained it. 

This sovereign, however calumniated by certain 
historians of our day, was never a vulgar debauchee. 
When it is remembered that at the age of forty-four, 
being still in the full vigor of moral and physical 
strength, he put an end to all scandals and thence- 
forth lived an irreproachable private life until his 
death, in spite of the seductions surrounding him 
on every side, it is impossible not to render homage 
to such a triumph of religious sentiment. 

There was nothing in that consciousness of royal 
dignity with which he has been wrongfully re- 
proached, as if it were a culpable pride, which was 
incompatible with reverence for the Divinity. Be- 
fore all things, Louis XIV. was a very spiritual 
man. Believing in the altar and the throne, he had 
faith in God first and then in himself, the anointed 
of the Lord. Heaven was his ideal, and under 
heaven, royalty; the royalty, which represented the 
right of force and the force of right, the majestic, 
tutelary royalty, which, like the sun, shed the splen- 
dor and beneficence of its beams on poor and rich, on 
small and great. Louis XIV. had a very just opin- 
ion of himself. So great as he esteemed himself in 



LOUIS XIV. AND MIS COURT IN 1682 51 

the sight of men, so little did he think himself in 
the sight of God. Better than any other could he 
apply to himself Corneille's line: — 

" Pour etre plus qu'un roi, te crois-tu quelque chose ? " ^ 

The sovereign who would have defied all other 
monarchs taken together, kneeled humbly before an 
obscure priest. The worthy inheritor of Charle- 
magne asked pardon for his sins from the son of a 
peasant. It is this mixture of Christian humility 
with royal pride which gives an aspect so imposing 
to the character of Louis XIV. The religious sen- 
timents taught him from his cradle by his mother 
constantly recurred to his mind, even in his most 
lamentable errors. When he was a child this impas- 
sioned mother, kneeling before him, cried with trans- 
port: "I would respect him as much as I love him." 
But this exclamation was not an idle flattery. It 
might be called an act of faith in the principle of 
royalty. 

The first impressions of the child were but 
strengthened in the man. There was always in him 
somewhat of both the sovereign and the pontiff. 
He reigned with the same solemn gravity with 
which sincerely convinced priests officiate. Soul of 
the State, source of all grace, all justice, and all 
glory, he considered himself the lieutenant of God 



1 Dost think tliou art somewhat because thou art more than a 
king? 



52 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

upon earth, and it was in that capacity that he had 
a veneration for himself which the great preachers 
incessantly confirmed. Bossuet's ideas of govern- 
ment are simply a commentary on that political faith, 
intimately associated with religious faith, of which 
it is the corollary. To the great bishop as to the 
great king, royalty is not a trade, but a priesthood, 
and a sovereign who should not have the sentiment 
of monarchical dignity would be as blameworthy as 
a priest who should not respect the cult of which 
he is the minister. It was to this theory, the very 
essence of royal power, that Louis XIV. owed that 
authoritative physical and moral attitude which 
Saint-Simon styles "the constant dignity and con- 
tinual law of his exterior." 

The ascendency which he thought it not simply 
his right but his duty to exercise over all his sub- 
jects, be they what they might, made itself especially 
felt by those who were near him. The government 
of his court, his family, his gynseceum, was subject 
to the same rules and doctrines as the affairs of State. 
In him the paternal and the royal authority were 
combined. Nothing escaped his control. His 
wishes were irrevocable decrees, and his son, the 
Dauphin, behaved toward him like the most submis- 
sive and respectful of all his courtiers. Revolution- 
ary times may criticise such a system, but it is 
admirable none the less. The principle of author- 
ity, imposed on Nature herself as the general law of 
creation, is the basis of all organized society. 



LOUIS XIV. AND HIS COURT IN 1682 53 

It is the glory of Louis XIV. to have been the 
convinced representative, the living symbol of this 
principle; to have comprehended that where there 
is no religious there is no political discipline, and 
that where there is no political there is no military 
discipline. The same theories are applicable to 
churches, palaces, and camps. Indispensable au- 
thority is still more precious than necessary liberties, 
and in matters of government as in those of art, 
beauty is impossible without unity. The entire pro- 
gramme of Louis XIV. was a constant aspiration 
toward the unity which is harmony. That is why 
Napoleon, in excusing the defects of a sovereign 
whose glory he was so well adapted to appreciate, 
said with admiration : " Are there not spots on the 
sun? Louis XIV. was a great king. It was he 
who raised France to the first rank among nations. 
What king of France since Charlemagne can be 
compared to Louis XIV. under all his aspects ? " 



Ill 

QTJEESr MAEIE THEEESB 

TO find among types disturbed by pride, ambi- 
tion, and the love of pleasure, a face of supreme 
sweetness, a truly Christian character, a pure, can- 
did, angelic soul, is a veritable satisfaction, I might 
almost say a repose to the observer. One looks with 
composure at simplicity beneath the diadem ; humil- 
ity on the throne; the qualities and virtues of a 
nun in the heart of a queen; a short but well- 
filled life; a r81e seemingly eclipsed, but in reality 
more serious and above all more noble and respect- 
able than that of many celebrated women ; at great 
moral sufferings Christianly and courageously sup- 
ported; in a word, at an irreproachable type of piety 
and goodness, of conjugal tenderness and maternal 
love. Such was Marie Th^r^se of Austria, the pious 
companion of Louis XIV. 

The French monarchy has had the privilege of 
being sanctified by a certain number of queens whose 
virtues might be called a compensation for court 
scandals, and who have contributed more than any 
others to preserve the moral authority of the throne. 

64 



QUEEN MARIE THJSBESE 55 

Just as under the reigns of the later Valois Claude 
of France, Elisabeth of Austria, and Louise de Vaud^- 
mont redeemed the vices of Francis I., Charles IX., 
and Henry III. by their purity of heart, so Marie 
Th^r^se may be said to have recompensed morality 
for the injuries inflicted on it by Louis XIV. 
History should not forget this woman in whose veins 
flowed the blood of Charles V. and that of Henry 
IV. ; this sovereign who wore her royal mantle 
with dignity even while comparing it to a winding- 
sheet; this model wife who loved her husband with 
all the strength of her soul and never approached him 
but with a mingled respect, fear, and tenderness; 
this devoted mother who made it her care to move 
the heart of the young Prince whose mind was com- 
mitted to the charge of Bossuet; this holy woman 
who has proved that a palace may become a sanctu- 
ary, and that a Christian heart may beat under vel- 
vet and ermine as well as under a robe of frieze. 

Marie Th^r^se, born like Louis XIV. in 1638, was 
but a few days younger than he. Her father was 
Philip IV., King of Spain, and her mother Isabella 
of France, daughter of Henry IV. and Maria de' 
Medici. Hence she was cousin-german to Louis 
XIV. The Christian sentiments of this princess 
who reckoned Saint Elisabeth of Hungary and Saint 
Elisabeth of Portugal among her ancestors, did not 
prevent her from being conscious of the glory of her 
family. A nun who was aiding her to make her 
examination of conscience for a general confession, 



56 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

asked her one day, if before her marriage, she had 
never sought to please or desired to be loved. 
"No," replied the Queen. "Could I have loved 
any one in Spain? There were no kings at my 
father's court." 

Marie Thdrese was not remarkable from the phys- 
ical point of view. Her Germanic rather than 
Spanish countenance, her dull white complexion, 
her very blond hair, her large pale blue eyes, her 
red and hanging lips, her heavy features, her small 
figure, rendered her neither beautiful nor ugly. 
Still, at the time of her marriage she had not lacked 
overstrained compliments and enthusiastic descrip- 
tions. All Parnassus had set to work. A multi- 
tude of French and Latin verses, in the following 
strain, had been composed: — 

" Therese seule a pu vaincre par ses regards 
Ce superbe vaiuqueur, qui triomphe de Mars."* 

" Victorem Martis proeda, spolii isque superbum 
Vincere quce posset, sola Theresa fuit," 

But this Queen whose hand had been desired by so 
many princes, and whose marriage had so much 
political importance, made a silence all round her as 
soon as she was installed in the Louvre and at 
Saint-Germain. The timidity of her character, her 
instinctive horror of the slanders and calumnies so 



1 Theresa only has been able to vanquish by her glances 
This superb victor who triumphs over Mars. 



qUEEN MABIE THISBESE 67 

frequent in courts, her remoteness from all intrigues, 
her passionate admiration for the King whom she 
believed far too superior to herself for her to dare 
offer him any political counsel, all aided to keep 
her ignorant of government secrets. Nevertheless, 
when Louis XIV. made foreign wars, he decorated 
her with the title of regent. But in spite of these 
more nominal than real functions, Marie Th^r^se 
busied herself very little with the affairs of State, 
and the ministers continued in fact, if not in law, to 
hold only from the sovereign. On formal occasions 
Louis XIV. addressed his bulletins of victory to the 
Queen. It was she who received official notification 
of the crossing of the Rhine. When her husband 
was making a campaign, people said : " The King is 
fighting, and the Queen praying." 

Marie Th^rdse had not a superior intelligence, but 
she united a great sentiment of dignity to much tact 
and good sense. To Bossuet, who was charged 
with the education of the Dauphin, she said : " Do 
not permit anything, sir, in the conduct of my son 
which may wound the sanctity of the religion he 
professes and the majesty of the throne to which he 
is destined." Her convictions as to the origin and 
character of the royal power were absolutely like 
those of her husband. She testified a boundless 
admiration for him, and not one of the women who 
were enamoured of him loved him more strongly and 
more constantly. At the beginning of her marriage, 
Louis XIV. had treated her not only with great 



58 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

respect, but with real tenderness. Wlien she brought 
the Dauphin into the world, the King was shedding 
tears of anguish so long as the pains of her delivery- 
lasted, and at five o'clock in the morning he went to 
confession and communion. ^ In eleven years Marie 
Thdrdse had three sons and three daughters and lost 
them all very young with the exception of the 
Dauphin. She endured these cruel deaths with 
admirable resignation but with a lacerated heart. 

Her husband's infidelities, concealed at first, pub- 
lic later on, caused her nothing less than torture. 
Assuredly it was a sad spectacle to see the King's 
favorites forming part of the Queen's household and 
apparently waiting on a woman of whom, under the 
externals of respect, they were in reality the rivals 
and persecutors. Mademoiselle de La Valli^re, 
maid of honor to Marie Th^rese, made her suffer all 
the torments of jealousy and outraged conjugal love. 
More than once the unhappy Queen was heard to 
exclaim with bitterness: "That girl will be the 
death of me." Mademoiselle de La Valli^re rode in 
the royal carriage with Madame de Montespan and 
appeared thus at the frontiers, the camps, and the 
armies. 

"The people," says Saint-Simon, "hastened from 
all parts to see the three queens, and asked each 
other in all simplicity if they had seen them." 
Thirty-six years of the most austere penitence in 

1 Memoirs of Madame de Motteville. 



QUEEN MABIE TH£Bi:SE 59 

the strictest conventual enclosure and the most se- 
vere mortifications did not seem to the Duchess de 
La Vallidre, now become Sister Louise of Mercy, a 
sufficient expiation for the griefs she had occasioned 
the saintly Queen. Between the repentant favorite 
and the forgiving wife there were established, in the 
holy silence of the cloister, friendly relations which 
form one of the most touching souvenirs of history. 
A member of the Paris clergy, M. I'Abb^ Duclos, 
has devoted a long and learned work to the compara- 
tive study of Marie Thdrese and Mademoiselle de 
La Vallidre. It is in reality an edifying subject, 
and I do not wonder that it thrust itself upon the 
pious meditations of a priest. Nowhere was Marie 
Thdr^se more loved and venerated than in that 
Carmelite convent in the rue Saint-Jacques where 
she came to visit the woman who had exchanged the 
r61e of a king's mistress for that of a servant of 
God. 

Some time before her own scandalous favor began, 
Madame de Montespan had said: "God preserve me 
from being the King's mistress ! But if I were so, 
I should be very much ashamed before the Queen." 
The woman who used this language was precisely 
she who was to play her part as favorite with the 
utmost pomp and pride. And yet, at the bottom of 
her soul the triumphant beauty, the superb sultana, 
so infatuated with her charms and her wit, her 
luxury and splendor, her elevation and her power, 
felt herself belittled in presence of this good and 



60 THi: WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

pious Queen, the mere sight of whom was a mute 
reproach. For awhile she succeeded in deceiving 
her and in passing for an exemplary woman. But 
the Queen, who, thou*gh she did not readily believe 
in evil, was not without perspicacity, was quickly 
disabused. One day she said : " I know more about 
it than they think, and I am nobody's dupe, what- 
ever they may fancy." 

Louis XIV., who felt himself guilty toward this 
Queen so worthy of affection and respect, tried to 
make amends by the deference he displayed for her. 
He treated her with gentleness and courtesy both 
in public and private, and through attachment and 
conscience as an honest man as well as through 
interest in his dynasty, he never entirely neglected 
her. When he came back to her, says the Princess 
Palatine, " she became so gay that people remarked it 
every time. . . . Then she laughed, and twinkled, 
and rubbed her little hands. . . . She had such an 
affection for the King that she tried to read in his 
eyes whatever would give him pleasure; providing 
he looked kindly at her she was happy all day."^ 
She neither acted, thought, nor lived except in him. 
The fear of displeasing him turned her cold with 
fright. "That poor princess," says Madame de 
Caylus in her Souvenirs, "had such a dread of the 
King and such great natural timidity that she neither 
dared speak to him nor run the risk of a tete-a-tete 

1 Letters of the Princess Palatine. 



QUEEN MARIE TH^BESE 61 

with him. I have heard Madame de Maintenon say 
that the King having sent for the Queen one day, 
she asked her to go with her, so that she might not 
appear alone in his presence ; but that she only con- 
ducted her to the door of the room and there took the 
liberty of pushing her so as to make her enter, and 
that she observed such a great trembling in her whole 
person that her very hands shook with fright." 

How, with a wife so worthy of respect, so irre- 
proachable as Marie Thdr^se, could a sovereign who, 
like Louis XIV., had the notion of justice and in- 
justice, of respect for himself and his people, have 
so far forgotten himself as to recognize, publicly and 
solemnly, the children of a double adultery? This 
is a real problem. The fault, we are bound to say, 
was less due to the King's pride than to the idolatry 
of the nation. The chief offenders were those ser- 
vile courtiers who through interest and cupidity far 
more than through admiration deified the monarch 
in open Christendom, and, if they had received per- 
mission, would have raised altars as well as tri- 
umphal arches to him. Never would Louis XIV. 
have permitted these legitimations if public opinion 
had been more moral. One is obliged to recognize 
that in this affair neither the clergy, the nobility, nor 
the people at large possessed the necessary energy 
and dignity. Great scandals are accomplished only 
by degrees. Sovereigns do not yield to them unless 
they are supported by the base sentiments of those 
around them. Louis XIV. had at first no thought 



62 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

of legitimating his bastards, still less of putting 
them in the line of succession to the crown. He 
was led to it by a combination of different circum- 
stances: in the first place, I confess, by that pride 
which made him rate himself, like another Jove, 
above the laws of his Olympus ; then by the impulse, 
the vertigo of those audacious sins, those pSches 
d'ahondance which, as Bossuet says, "wish to enjoy 
all the light of day and all the knowledge of heaven. " 
He had paternal affection also, and greater, perhaps, 
than all these, a desire to rehabilitate and console 
the women of whose faults he had been the cause. 

But in spite of everything, the legitimations are 
monstrous actions, unjustifiable attacks upon moral- 
ity, society, and religion, and on this head Saint- 
Simon's wrath is only too just. But does not the 
responsibility fall, in part at least, on those detest- 
able flatterers of whom Racine speaks who are the 
panders and slaves of royal vices? Does not one 
recall these curious remarks of the austere Duke de 
Saint-Simon concerning his own father: "Louis 
XIII. was really enamoured of Mademoiselle de 
Hautefort. . . . My father was young and gallant, 
and he could not understand a king so amorous and 
so little able to conceal it, who did not go any 
farther. He thought it was timidity, and on this 
principle, when the King was once speaking to him 
passionately about this girl, my father proposed to 
him to become his ambassador and bring the affair to 
a speedy conclusion." 



QUEEN MARIE TH^B^^SE 63 

Could we believe it? The man who urged Louis 
XIV. most strongly to make scandalously fine alli- 
ances for his bastards was the great Condd. The 
marriage of his nephew, Prince de Conti, to a daugh- 
ter of Mademoiselle de La Valliere, and that of his 
grandson to a daughter of Madame de Montespan, 
overwhelmed him with joy. 

"The King," says Madame de Caylus, "would 
never have thought of raising his bastards so high 
but for the anxiety shown by the two Princes of 
Cond^ to link themselves with him by this sort of 
marriages. Conde hoped to efface in this way the 
impression the past might have left on the King's 
mind; his son displayed the zeal and baseness of a 
courtier who wanted to make his fortune." It must 
be admitted that the attitude of such a man as the 
victor of Rocroy is, not indeed an excuse, but an 
attenuating circumstance for Louis XIV. When 
flatterers arrive at a certain limit one cannot demand 
wisdom of kings. How can a prince believe him- 
self still a man when idolatrous subjects treat him as 
a demigod? We find but one thing surprising, and 
that is that, in spite of his flatterers, Louis XIV. 
still retained so much good sense as to desire and 
will his own conversion. 

"It is very true," says the Princess Palatine, 
" that our King has given scandal by his mistresses, 
but he has had a great repentance for it." He had 
never yielded to voluptuousness without remorse, 
and even at the time of his most violent passions, a. 



64 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

secret struggle, a relentless battle between pleasure 
and duty went on within him. In the very height 
of his most stormy temptations he had returns to 
virtue. Religious faith never abandoned him. He 
never but once failed to be present at Mass, and that 
in war-time when to do otherwise was impossible. 

From the 1st of January, 1674, he had brought 
about a considerable modification in the Queen's 
household. Suppressing the maids of honor, several 
of whom had doubtful reputations, he h^d set about 
replacing them by women married to great person- 
ages and specially renowned for conjugal fidelity. 
He was freeing himself by degrees from the tyranny 
of his senses, and his passion for Madame de Monte- 
span was on the decline when, in 1680, a new idol, 
Mademoiselle de Fontanges, suddenly kindled a new 
flame. He took to dancing again with the ardor of 
a very young man. Like Mademoiselle de La Val- 
li^re, the favorite received the title of duchess. 
Her sister was appointed Abbess of Chelles, just as 
Madame de Montespan's sister had been appointed 
Abbess of Fontevrault. 

In 1680, on New Year's Day, she was present at 
the King's Mass "extraordinarily decked with jewels 
on a robe of the same stuff as Her Majesty's, and 
both of them with blue ribbons."^ La Fontaine 
addressed her the most laudatory of epistles. She 
seemed at the height of favor when, carried off by a 

1 Bussy Rabutin'iS Letters to La Riviere, January 15, 1680. 




MADEMOISELLE DE LA VALLIERE, 



QUEEN MABIE TH^BESE 65 

sudden death, after a pregnancy, June 28, 1681, 
she once more proved that, as Bossuet has said, 
health is but a name, life but a dream, and the 
graces and pleasures only a dangerous amusement. 

In this terrible death Louis XIV. beheld a lesson, 
a warning from on high, and thenceforth he returned 
in good earnest to the principles of virtue and duty. 
Madame de Maintenon, who boasted of loving him 
not for himself, but for God, used all her influence 
to keep him faithful to the Queen. When he finally 
established his residence at Versailles, in 1682, that 
princess was satisfied with the affection he evinced 
for her. Madame de Caylus affirms in her Souvenirs 
that he lavished attentions on her to which she was 
unaccustomed. He saw her more frequently and 
tried to amuse and divert her. Her son the Dau- 
phin, and her daughter-in-law, the Bavarian Dau- 
phiness, also showed her the greatest deference. 

Her apartments at Versailles, composed of five 
large rooms, ending at the marble staircase at one 
extremity and at the Gallery of Mirrors at the other, 
were furnished magnificently. The Queen occupied 
the chamber already mentioned in the introduction 
to this study, and from which may be seen the 
Orangery, the Swiss lake, and the hills of Satory. 
She was fond of leaving this splendid abode in order 
to go and pray in convents or visit hospitals. She 
might be seen waiting on the sick with her own 
royal hands, carrying them their nourishment like 
a simple inJBrmarian, and when the doctors remarked 



66 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

on this in the interests of her own health, she replied 
that she could not employ it better than in serving 
Jesus Christ in the persons of the poor. 

Notwithstanding the return of affection manifested 
for her by the King, she continued to live humbly 
and modestly, busying herself with her domestic 
affairs, and not with those of State. The G-azette 
offi.cielle never mentions this good Queen except to 
announce that she had fulfilled her religious duties 
in her parish church or had gone to spend the day 
with the Carmelites of the rue Bouloi. 

Marie Th^rese, happy and consoled, rejoiced in 
the kindness of the King and the birth of her grand- 
son, the Duke of Burgundy. Far from being jealous 
of the increasing influence of Madame de Maintenon, 
she congratulated herself on it as one cause of the 
pious sentiments of Louis XIV., and never could it 
have occurred to her mind that Scarron's widow, the 
former governess of the bastards, would soon be the 
King's wife, and Queen of France in all but name. 



IV 

MADAME DE MONTESPAN IN 1682 

LOUIS XIV. had repented sincerely. After 
the death of Mademoiselle de Fontanges he 
had definitely forsaken mistresses, and was giving 
edification instead of scandal. Madame de Monte- 
span, who was treated with consideration on account 
of her birth and rank, and as being the mother of 
legitimated children, still acted as superintendent of 
the Queen's household. But Louis XIV. never saw 
her except in public, and she no longer counted for 
anything as favorite or mistress. In spite of her 
desperate efforts to retain her empire she was forced 
to let the left-hand sceptre slip from her grasp, and 
after making a hard battle against fate, after having 
employed her last batteries, she was obliged to own 
herself irremediably defeated. In 1682 she had 
given up the struggle, and religion was offering 
her a balm for the wounds inflicted by spite and 
pride. 

She was then forty years old and still preserved 
the lustre of her beauty. She did not owe her 
defeat to the diminution of her charms, but rather 

67 



68 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

to the progress of religious sentiments in the soul of 
Louis XIV. 

Before examining what the haughty favorite be- 
came, let us see what she had been in the days of 
her shameful victories. 

A haughty and opulent beauty, a forest of fair 
hair, flashing blue eyes, a complexion of splendid car- 
nation and dazzling whiteness, one of those alluring 
and radiant countenances which shed brightness 
around them wherever they appear, an incisive, 
caustic wit, sparkling with life and animation, an 
inextinguishable thirst for riches and pleasure, 
luxury and domination, the manners of a goddess 
audaciously usurping the place of Juno on Olym- 
pus, passion without love, pride without dignity, 
splendor without poetry: that was Madame de 
Montespan. 

Born in 1641, at the chateau of Tonnay-Charente, 
of the Duke de Mortemart and Diana de Grand- 
seigne, she was maid of honor to the Queen in 1660 
and in 1663 was married to the Marquis de Monte- 
span. She had been brought up very religiously and 
went to communion every week. Nothing, at this 
period, could have made her foresee the sorry r61e to 
which ambition and vanity, far more than an impulse 
of the heart, were to condemn her youth. Moreover, 
we must do her the justice of admitting that she did 
not succumb without a struggle. It is said that she 
entreated her imprudent husband to take her away 
from the perils of the court while there was still 



MADAME BE 3I0NTESPAN IN 1682 69 

time. It cost M. de Montespan something not to 
have been more jealous. Madame de Caylus remarks 
concerning this that far from having been born 
depraved, the future favorite had a character natu- 
rally disinclined to gallantry and tending towards 
virtue. "She was flattered at being mistress, not 
solely for her own pleasure, but on account of the 
passion of the King. She believed she could make 
him always desire what she had resolved never to 
grant him. She was in despair at her first preg- 
nancy, consoled herself for the second one, and in 
all the others carried impudence as far as it could 
go."i 

Her great favor lasted about thirteen years. This 
was the epoch of the intoxication of courtiers and 
the prostration of peoples. The court was like a 
sort of Christian and monarchical Olympus of which 
King Louis XIV. was the Jove. " Inferior gods and 
goddesses moved beneath him. Their virtues were 
extolled and their very vices paraded with an audac- 
ity of superiority which seemed to establish between 
the people and the throne the difference between the 
morality of gods and that of men. Louis XIV. had 
made himself accepted as an exception in all things, 
even in humanity. "^ The most admirable geniuses 
had become the accomplices of this new idolatry. 
Did not Moli^re say in his Amphitryon : — 

1 Souvenirs of Madame de Caylus. 

2 Lamartine, Etude sur Fenelon. 



70 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

" Un partage avec Jupiter 
N'a rien du tout qui deshonore, 
Et sans doute il ne peut etre que glorieux 
De se voir le rival du souverain des Dieux." ^ 

M. de Montespan was not of this opinion, but he 
was considered a ridiculous person, a fool. 

The good La Fontaine, offering to Madame de 
Montespan the seventh book of his fables, fairly 
outstripped the limits of flattery in his dedica- 
tion : — 

" Sous vos seuls auspices ces vers 

Seront juges, malgre I'envie, 

Dignes des yeux de I'univers. 
Je ne merite pas une f aveur si grande ; 

La Fable en son nom la demande ; 
Vous savez quel credit ce mensonge a sur nous. 
S'il procure a mes vers le bonheur de vous plaire, 
Je croirai lui devoir un temple pour salaire : 
Mais je ne veux batir des temples que pour vous." ^ 



1 A partnership vdth Jupiter 

Has nothing at all dishonoring in it, 
And doubtless it cannot be other than glorious 
To behold oneself the rival of the sovereign of the gods. 

2 Under your auspices alone these verses 
Will be judged, in spite of envy, 

As worthy of the eyes of the universe. 
I do not merit so great a favor ; 

Fable demands it on her own behalf ; 
You know what credit fiction has with us. 
If it shall procure for my verses the happiness of pleasing you, 
I should feel that I owed it a temple as reward ; 
But I will build no temples save for you. 



MADAME BE MONTESPAN liV 1682 71 

Adulation was carried so far that the courtiers 
were grateful to the favorite for having given seven 
children ^ to the King, and made no adverse criticism 
on their legitimation. The post of King's mistress 
was considered as a public function, a great court 
office, having its rights and duties, its ceremonial 
and etiquette. Even Colbert, the inflexible minis- 
ter, the marble man, vir marmoreus, the glacial per- 
sonage whom Madame de Sevigne styled the North, 
was constantly occupied with the love affairs of Louis 
XIV. and Madame de Montespan. It was to him 
that the King wrote, June 15, 1678: "I hear that 
Montespan allows himself to say indiscreet things ; 
he is a fool whom you will do me the kindness to 
have closely watched. ... I know he threatens to 
see his wife, and as he is capable of it, and the con- 
sequences might be dreaded, I rely on you to keep 
him quiet." 

1 Here is the list of tlie seven children of Louis XIV. and 
Madame de Montespan : — 

1. A daughter, born in 1669, who died at the age of three 
years ; 

2. The Duke du Maine, horn in 1670, married in 1692 to Made- 
moiselle de Bourhon-Charolais, died in 1736 ; 

3. The Count de Vexin, born in 1672, died in 1683 ; 

4. Mademoiselle de Nantes, born in 1673, married to the Duke 
de Bourbon in 1685, died in 1743 ; 

5. Mademoiselle de Tours, born in 1674, died in 1681 ; 

6. Mademoiselle de Blois, born in 1677, married in 1692 to the 
Duke de Chartres (the future regent), died in 1749; 

7. The Count de Toulouse, born in 1678, married in 1728 to 
Mademoiselle de Noailles, died in 1737. 



72 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

To all appearance Madame de Montespan was 
happy. Her beautiful face shone with the glow of 
her apotheosis. She was the haughty sultana, the 
idol, the conquering beauty. Madame de S^vign^, 
the great admirer of success, cast ecstatic glances 
toward the triumphant mistress. She had a naive 
enthusiasm for that marvellous robe "of gold on 
gold, re-embroidered in gold, and above that a 
shaggy gold, restitched with a gold mixed with a 
certain gold, which makes the divinest stuff that ever 
was imagined. " She wrote to her daughter ; " Madame 
de Montespan was covered with diamonds the other 
day; no one could stand the lustre of such a divinity. 
... O my daughter, what triumph at Versailles! 
what redoubled pride! what a solid establishment! 
what pleasure, even by distractions and absence ! " 

And yet Madame de Montespan was troubled and 
uneasy. The scandal of her life was disturbed by 
occasional inclinations toward repentance. Already 
there was going on in her soul a latent, relentless 
war between heaven and earth, between duty and 
sensual pleasure. "The King," says Madame de 
Caylus, "was religious at bottom, and showed it 
even in his greatest disorders with women, for that 
was the only weakness he ever had. The great 
feasts caused him remorse, for he was equally 
troubled at not performing his devotions and at 
performing them badly. Madame de Montespan 
had the same sentiments, and it was not solely to 
show her conformity to the King that she displayed 



MADAME DE MONTE SPAN IN 1682 73 

them. She had been perfectly well brought up. 
She showed it, as the King did at all times, and I 
remember to have heard that she fasted so rigidly in 
Lent as to have her bread weighed." 

Saint-Simon makes the same remark. He says 
that "great glutton and gourmand as she was, 
nothing in the world could have made her fail to 
observe the regulations of the Church concerning 
the fasts of Lent and the Ember Days, and she left 
the King to go and recite some prayers every day." 

One day the Duchess d'Uzds expressed her aston- 
ishment at such religious scruples. "What! Ma- 
dame," replied the favorite, "because I do one bad 
thing must I do all the others ? " 

Nothing is more painful for the soul than these 
half-pieties, these half-conversions, these bursts of 
repentance which bring the fear of hell and take 
away the hope of paradise. "Virtue," Massillon 
has said, " is a hidden manna ; to taste all its sweet- 
ness you must fathom it thoroughly; but the more 
you advance, the more do consolations abound, the 
calmer grow the passions, the straighter are the 
paths, the more you applaud yourself on having 
broken the chains which you did not drag without 
regret and secret sadness. Thus, so long as you 
confine yourself to mere attempts at virtue, you will 
taste nothing but its repugnances and bitterness; 
and as you have not the fidelity of the just, you 
ought not to expect their consolations."^ 

1 Massillon, Sermon sur le salut. 



74 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Such was the state of Madame de Montespan's 
heart when in Holy Week of 1675 she wanted to 
perform her Easter duties publicly at Versailles. 
The priest to whom she addressed herself, the Abbd 
Ldcuyer, flatly refused to give her absolution so long 
as the scandal of adultery continued. Thereupon 
the wrath of the irascible Duchess was kindled and 
she carried her complaint to Louis XIV. 

The King summoned the cur^ of the parish to 
which the Ahh6 Ldcuyer was attached. The curd 
had the courage to sustain his vicar. Then Bossuet 
was consulted. The worthy successor of the bishops 
of the primitive Church did not hesitate a single 
moment. He replied that in such circumstances an 
entire, absolute separation was an absolute condition 
for being admitted to the sacraments, and he pro- 
claimed "the imperious duty of denying absolution 
to public sinners living in notorious habits of dis- 
order and refusing to quit them." Louis XIV. 
bowed respectfully to the decision of the man of 
God. He finally resolved to break with Madame de 
Montespan. 

This most unexpected result — for Louis XIV. was 
then in the full vigor of manhood and as ardent as 
ever in his passion for his mistress — was due to the 
counsels of Bossuet and the preaching of Bourda- 
loue. 

The preachers had a real influence at court, and 
exercised over both the sovereign and society at 
large a moral ascendancy which has been described 



MADAME BE MONTESPAN IN 1682 75 

with as much skill as exactness by a distinguished 
ecclesiastic, M. the Abb^ Hurel.^ Bourdaloue, the 
admirable orator, so grand in his simplicity, so 
venerable in his modesty, the puissant, irresistible 
dialectician whose compact arguments made him 
excel in giving pitched battles to the consciences of 
his hearers, and of whom the great Cond^ said, as 
he saw him ascending the pulpit: "Silence I there 
is the enemy!" Bourdaloue was without contradic- 
tion one of the most active agents in the conversion 
of Louis XIV. He had preached at court the Ad- 
vent of 1670 and the Lents of 1672, 1674, and 1675. 
Bold as a tribune and courageous as an apostle, 
he turned the iron in the wound. The pitiless 
enemy of adultery, he exclaimed with holy candor: 
" Have you not seen again that person, the reef on 
which your firmness and your constancy have been 
shattered? Have you not again sought the occa- 
sions so dangerous for you ? . . . Ah ! Christians, 
how many conversions would not your single exam- 
ple produce? What an attraction would it not be 
for certain sinners, discouraged and fallen into 
despair, if they could say to themselves: 'There is 
that man whom we have seen in the same debauch- 
eries as ourselves, and behold him converted and 
submissive to God.'" Then, addressing himself 
more directly still to Louis XIV., the orator added 

1 Les Orateurs sacres a la cour de Louis XIV. par M. VAhhe 
Burel. "We recommend this curious and learned work to all who 
are interested in studying the great century. 



76 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

in the same sermon: "Truth is what saves kings; 
Your Majesty seeks for it, loves those who make it 
known to him, can have nothing but contempt for 
those who disguise it from him, and, far from resist- 
ing it, will esteem it glorious to be vanquished by- 
it." 

Bossuet's exhortations were not less urgent. His 
functions as preceptor to the Dauphin gave him fre- 
quent access to the King, and he used them to plead 
energetically the cause of duty and virtue. It was 
he who, in his sermon on the feast of the Purifica- 
tion, delivered at court, had said : " Let us fly dan- 
gerous occasions and not presume upon our strength. 
One cannot long resist his vigor when he has to 
employ it against himself." It was he who wrote 
to M. de Bellefond: "Pray to God for me; pray 
Him either to deliver me from the greatest burden 
that can be imposed on a man, or else to put to death 
all that is man in me, so that He may act alone. 
God be thanked, during the whole course of this 
affair I have not yet thought that I am in the 
world ; but that is not all ; one should be, like Saint 
Ambrose, a real man of God, a man of the other life, 
in whom all things speak, whose every word is an 
oracle of the Holy Spirit, whose whole conduct is 
heavenly; pray, pray, I entreat you." 

Louis XIV., reconciled with God and with him- 
self, had received his Easter Communion on Holy 
Saturday (April, 1675). A few days later, on 
quitting Versailles to rejoin his army, he declared 



MADAME BE MONTESPAN IN 1682 77 

to the Queen, to Bossuet, and to Pere La Chaise, 
that all was finally at an end between him and 
Madame de Montespan. The favorite had sub- 
mitted. She also had communicated and had taken 
shelter at Paris in a modest and unknown house. 
Bossuet went thither to give her instructions and 
confirm her in the right path. "I find Madame de 
Montespan sufficiently tranquil," he wrote to Louis 
XIV. " She occupies herself greatly in good works. 
I see her much affected by the verities I propose to 
her, and which are the same I uttered to Your 
Majesty. To her as to you I have offered the words 
by which God commands us to yield our whole hearts 
to Him; they have caused her to shed many tears. 
May God establish these verities in the depths of 
both your hearts, in order that so many tears, so 
much violence, so many efforts as you have made to 
subdue yourselves may not be in vain! " 

The attitude of Bossuet throughout this affair has 
been criticised with culpable levity. Madame de 
S^vign^, who does not always weigh her expressions 
and too frequently judges men and things with the 
giddiness of a worldly woman, has spoken of a con- 
formity between the counsels of the bishop and those 
of Madame de Montespan's adherents, of a strong 
accord between the interests of the policy of the 
King's mistress and those of Christianity.^ Cha- 
teaubriand has been still more unjust in his Analyse 

1 Letter to Madame de Grignan, July 13, 1675. 



78 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

raisonnee de VEistoire de France. " We ask our- 
selves," he says, "how a prince could have a recog- 
nized mistress whom honor, genius, and virtue came 
to worship ; this idea made its entrance in the seven- 
teenth century. Bossuet undertook to reconcile 
Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan." 

Nothing can be more inexact than this assertion, 
to which M. Floquet and M. Pierre Clement have 
already done justice. 

No ; Bossuet was not one " of these teachers who, 
in their unfortunate and inhuman complaisance, 
their deadly pity, lay cushions under the elbows 
of sinners and seek a cloak for their passions."^ 
Was the man a pander who wrote to Louis XIV. 
in July, 1675: "Sire, the feast of Pentecost is ap- 
proaching, when Your Majesty has resolved to com- 
municate. Although I doubt not that you have 
thought seriously of what you have promised to 
God, as you have requested me to remind you of it, 
the time has come when I feel myself still more 
bound to do so. Reflect, Sire, that you cannot be 
truly converted if you do not labor to remove from 
your heart not merely the sin but the occasion which 
leads you to it. True conversion does not content 
itself with destroying the fruits of death, as says the 
Scripture, that is to say, the sins , but it goes even 
to the root, which will infallibly cause them to 
sprout forth again if it be not eradicated." 

1 Bossuet, Oraison funebre de Canet. 



MADAME BE MONTESPAN IN 1682 79 

With wliat respectful firmness, what nobility of 
thought and language, the great bishop addresses 
himself to the great King! "I hope," he writes in 
the same letter, " that the great matters which daily 
occupy Your Majesty more and more, will greatly 
aid in curing you. Nothing is talked of now but 
the beauty of your troops and what they are capably 
of executing under so great a leader. For my part, 
Sire, I am all the while secretly thinking of a far 
more important war and a much more difficult vic- 
tory which God proposes to you. 

"Meditate, Sire, on these words of the Son of 
God ; they seem to have been uttered for great kings 
and conquerors : What doth it profit a man, He says, 
to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? 
And what gain can recompense him for so great a 
loss? Of what use will it be to you. Sire, to be 
redoubtable and victorious externally, if within you 
are vanquished and a captive ? Pray God then that 
He may set you free ; I will so pray to Him with 
all my heart. My anxieties for your salvation in- 
crease from day to day, because I daily understand 
better what your dangers are. May God bless Your 
Majesty! May God grant you victory, and, by vic- 
tory, peace within and without! The more sincerely 
Your Majesty gives your heart to God, the more 
you place your hope and confidence in Him, the 
more also will you be protected by His powerful 
hand." 

This letter produced an impression on the soul of 



80 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

Louis XIV. He communicated on Whitsunday, 
June 2, in the camp of Latines, two days before 
Mademoiselle de La Valli^re was professed as a 
Carmelite nun. Madame de Montespan also ap- 
proached the Holy Table. It was believed that a 
serious conversion had been effected. The Marquise 
had returned to her chateau of Clagny, near Ver- 
sailles. The Queen, always good and generous, 
forgave her from the bottom of her heart and allowed 
her to perform her functions as lady of the palace. 

Well-informed people were not greatly touched 
by the pious dispositions of the haughty Marquise 
who, far from appearing ashamed of the scandals she 
had given, lorded it over the magnificent construc- 
tions of her Clagny palace like Dido in the midst of 
rising Carthage. "You cannot imagine," wrote 
Madame de S^vignd, June 12, 1675, "what triumph 
she is in amongst her workmen, who number some 
twelve hundred; the palace of Appolidon and the 
gardens of Armida are a light description of it." 
While the poor Queen, deceived once more, visited 
Clagny and took Madame de Montespan sometimes 
to the Trianon and sometimes to the Carmelite con- 
vent, a secret correspondence had been renewed 
between the King and his mistress. Louis XIV., 
still at the camp of Latines, wrote to Colbert on 
June 5 : " Continue to do what Madame de Monte- 
span wishes. Send me word what orange-trees have 
been taken to Clagny." And on the 8th of the same 
month: "The expense is excessive, and I see from 



MADAME BE MONTESPAN IN 1682 81 

this that nothing is impossible to you when it is a 
question of pleasing me. Madame de Montespan 
sends me word that you have acquitted yourself 
very well in what I commanded, and that you are 
always asking if she wants anything; continue al- 
ways to do so." The flame, far from being extinct, 
was about to burn more ardently than ever. 

Intoxicated with his new triumphs and forgetful 
of the sacred promises made at the hour of departure, 
Louis XIV., leaving his army of Flanders, returned 
to court after an absence of several months (July, 
1675). Bossuet, who in spite of all his efforts had 
not been able to prevent Madame de Montespan 's 
return, went to meet the sovereign at Luzarches. 
The mere sight of the austere prelate was a mute 
reproach to the King. As soon as he perceived 
Bossuet, whose face wore an expression of great 
sadness, he exclaimed quickly : " Say nothing to me, 
sir, say nothing to me ; I have given my orders and 
they will be executed." 

The whole court was anxious to see ■wliat would 
happen. It was agreed, says Madame de Caylus, 
that the King should come to Madame de Monte- 
span's house, but, in order to give the scandal- 
mongers no occasion for faultfinding, it was also 
agreed that the gravest and most respectable ladies 
of the court should be present at this interview. 

" The King came therefore to Madame de Monte- 
span's house, as had been decided; but he gradually 
drew her into a window seat, wliere they whispered 



82 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

for a long time, wept, and said what is usually said 
in sucli cases; afterwards they made a profound 
reverence to these venerable matrons and passed into 
another chamber, and from thence came Madame the 
Duchess of Orleans and afterward M. the Count of 
Toulouse." 

Madame de Caylus adds in her Souvenirs, always 
written with subtlety and malice: "Here I cannot 
refuse to express a thought which occurs to my 
mind. It appears to me that the traces of this com- 
bat of love and jubilee may still be seen in the 
character, the physiognomy, and the whole person of 
Madame the Duchess of Orleans." 

To judge from appearances, the favorite had re- 
gained all her empire. "Her beauty is extreme," 
wrote Madame de Sdvigne. " Her attire is like her 
beauty, and her beauty like her attire. . . .^ I have 
been told that the other day Quanto ^ was seen lean- 
ing her head familiarly on her friend's shoulder; it 
was thought this affectation was meant to convey: 
' I am better off than ever. ' " 

Some days later Madame de Sdvign^ declared that 
the favorite's star was on the decline. " Quanto's 
star is growing pale; there are tears, natural cha- 
grin, affected gaiety, sulkiness. People look, they 
observe, they think they see rays of light on coun- 
tenances which, a month ago, they found unworthy 

1 Letter of August 7, 1676. 

2 Quanto and Quantora are the sobriquets given by Madame de 
Sfivigng to Madame de Montespan. 



MABAMJE BE MONTE SPAN IN 1682 83 

to be compared with others." ^ "Everybody thinks 
that the friend is no longer in love. . . . On the 
other hand, the attitude of friendship is not definitely 
taken; so much beauty still and so much pride do 
not easily take a second place. Jealousies are very 
keen; but did jealousies ever prevent anything? "^ 
The witty Marquise concludes by this very just re- 
flection: "If Quanto had really tied her bonnet- 
strings at Easter the year she returned to Paris, she 
would not be in her present agitation ; she was well- 
inclined to take this step; but human weakness is 
great, people like to husband the remains of beauty, 
and this economy ruins more than it enriches."^ 

Discontent with oneself; the lassitude of illicit 
loves ; the disquiet of a troubled soul which is still 
seeking happiness in vice but commences to see that 
it can only be found in virtue; the remorse which 
will not be stifled; the secret sadness that gnaws 
the soul, — Louis XIV., hesitating between good and 
evil, had arrived at these premonitory symptoms of 
repentance of which Saint Augustine's Confessions 
give so striking a description. Meanwhile, unfaith- 
ful to both his wife and his mistress, he was still 
paying court to the Princess de Soubise, Mademoi- 
selle de Fontanges, and other idols, worshipped on 
one day only to be abandoned on the next. Ma- 
dame de S^vigne wrote, April 6, 1680: "Madame 
de Montespan is enraged. She wept a good deal 

1 Letter of September 11, 1676, 2 Letter of September 30. 
3 Letter of October 16. 



84 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

yesterday. You can judge of the martyrdom her 
pride suffers, and it is still more outraged by the 
high favor of Madame de Maintenon." And Bussy 
Rabutin, April 30 of the same year: "Madame de 
Montespan is fallen. The King no longer looks at 
her, and you may be sure the courtiers follow his 
example." 

Louis XIV. thought to console her for the triumph 
of Mademoiselle de Fontanges by appointing her 
superintendent of the household to the Queen, who, 
"wishing to gratify her and treat her honorably," 
granted her a pension under this title (April, 1679). 
But the repudiated favorite, the mistress once 
"thundering and triumphant," was nevertheless in 
despair. Her enemies, blinded by hatred, accused 
her, in defiance of all truth, of having poisoned her 
rival, the Duchess of Fontanges, and the correspond- 
ence of the Princess Palatine shows the following 
traces of this odious and unjust suspicion: "Ma- 
dame de Montespan was an incarnate fiend, but the 
Fontanges was good and simple. The latter is dead, 
they say, because the former put poison in her milk. 
I do not know whether this is true, but what I do 
know well is that two of the Fontanges people died, 
saying publicly that they had been poisoned." 

Louis XIV., thenceforth satisfied as to the bitter- 
ness, the satiety, and the anguish of guilty passions, 
at last returned to God. The work of Bossuet had 
been accomplished. Saint-Simon, who does full 
justice to the conduct of the saintly prelate, says 



MADAME DE MONTESPAN IN 1682 85 

concerning him : " He often spoke to the sovereign 
with a freedom worthy of the first centuries and first 
bishops of tlie Churcli ; he interrupted the course of 
the disorder many times; at last he made it end." 

The conversion of Louis XIV. had this time a 
definitive character; but this result must not be 
attributed solely to religion ; it was also due to the 
influence of the woman of whom we are about to 
speak: Madame de Maintenon. 



MADAME DE MAINTENON IN 1682 

" "TTTHY are we so tender hearted for Mademoi- 
V V selle de La Valliere ? I greatly fear it is 
on account of her sin, not on account of her repent- 
ance. Why are we so hard towards Madame de 
Maintenon? I greatly fear it is on account of her 
virtue." This remark of an eminent critic, M. 
Hippolyte Rigault, is very just. It agrees with the 
opinion of another not less enlightened judge. " It 
seems," says M. Saint-Marc Girardin, "as if the 
world and posterity begrudged to Madame de Main- 
tenon a triumph gained by reason on behalf of 
honesty. Unable to prevent her from succeeding by 
reason, the world indemnified itself by giving her a 
reputation for frigidity and harshness very contrary 
to her character. Since reason must needs be trium- 
phant, the world insisted that it should at least be 
unamiable." 

A fair and luminous figure has been overshadowed. 
We forget that the woman represented under a 
gloomy, almost sinister aspect, was a charmer, an 
enchantress whom F^nelon characterized as "reason 



MADAME BE MAINTENON IN 1682 87 

speaking through the mouth of the Graces," whom 
Racine had in mind when writing these verses of 
Esther: — 

" Je ne trouve qu'en vous je ne sais quelle grSce 
Qui me charme toujours, et jamais ne me lasse." ^ 

Madame de Maintenon's adversaries carried the 
day at first against her admirers. But our own 
epoch, impassioned for historical verities, has revised 
a false judgment. 

Two able and convinced writers, the Duke de 
Noailles and M. Thdophile Lavallde, full of respect 
for a memory unjustly accused, have, as one may 
say, succeeded in resuscitating the true Madame 
de Maintenon. Baron de Walckenaer had already 
called attention to the fact that this woman, appre- 
ciated in such diverse fashions, is the one historical 
personage concerning whom we possess the most 
documents proceeding from her mouth or written 
by her pen. "Hence it is to be regretted," said he, 
"that even the most judicious historians have pre- 
ferred contemporary satires to the certain and au- 
thentic testimony furnished by herself, and have 
converted a simple and interesting history into a 
vulgar and incomprehensible romance." 

At present the truth has come to light. Madame 
de Maintenon's defenders have left nothing remain- 



1 Only in you I find a nameless grace 
Whicli charms me always and which never tires. 



THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 



ing of the invectives of Saint-Simon and the Princess 
Palatine against a woman who deserves the esteem 
of posterity whatever malevolence may say. Since 
the publication of the Duke de Noailles's fine work 
there has been a sort of literary tourney on the sub- 
ject of Madame de Maintenon, and the great critic 
Sainte-Beuve has been umpire. "M. Lavallee,"he 
says, "has experienced what happens to all fair 
minds who approach this distinguished person and 
take pains to know her in her ordinary life. . . . He 
has done justice to that mass of fantastic and odi- 
ously vague imputations which have long been in 
circulation concerning the pretended historical r61e 
of this celebrated woman. He has seen her as she 
was, wholly occupied with the King's salvation, his 
reform, his decent amusements, the interior of the 
royal family, and the amelioration of the people." 

The revolutionary?- school, which likes to drag the 
memory of the great King through the mud, natu- 
rally detests the eminent woman who was his com- 
panion, his friend, and his consoler. Writers of 
this school would like to make of her a type not 
simply odious and fatal, but ungraceful, antipathetic, 
without radiance, charm, or any sort of fascination. 
She is too frequently recalled to mind under the 
aspect of a worn old woman, stiff and severe, with 
tearless eyes and a face without a smile. We forget 
that in her youth she was one of the prettiest women 
of her time, that her beauty was wonderfully pre- 
served, and that in her old age she retained that 



MABAME BE MAINTENON IN 1682 89 

superiority of style and language, that distinction of 
manner and exquisite tact, that gentle firmness of 
character, that charm and elevation of mind, which 
at every period of her life gained her so much praise 
and so many friends. 

A rapid glance at a career so full of incident and 
so curious to study will suffice to make us under- 
stand how much sympathetic charm must have per- 
tained to the woman who could please Scarron and 
Louis XIV., Ninon de Lenclos and Madame de 
S^vign^, Madame de Montespan and the Queen, 
great ladies and nuns, prelates and little children. 

Fran§oise d'Aubign^, the future Madame de Main- 
tenon, came into the world, November 27, 1635, 
in a prison at Niort, where her father was confined, 
covered with debts and under an accusation of con- 
niving with the enemy. Cradled amid lamentations 
instead of tender lullabies, she began life sadly. 
On coming out of prison, her father took her at the 
age of three years to Martinique, where he went to 
seek his fortune. He lost all he had at the gaming- 
table and died, leaving his wife and child in poverty. 
When she was ten years old Frangoise d'Aubign^ 
returned to France. Her mother confided her to 
the care of an aunt, Madame de Villette, who brought 
her up in the Protestant religion, of which her ances- 
tor, the celebrated Thdodore Agrippa d'Aubigne, had 
been an intrepid champion. "I very much fear," 
wrote Madame d'Aubign^ to Madame de Villette, 
" that this poor little galeuse may give you a good 



90 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

deal of trouble; that will be the result of your 
goodness in being willing to take her. God give 
her the grace to be able to requite you for it!"^ 
Some time afterward, Frangoise was withdrawn from 
the Protestant hands of Madame de Villette and 
entrusted to those of another and very zealous 
Catholic relative, Madame de Neuillant. " I ruled 
in the farmyard," she said afterward, "and it was 
there my reign commenced. ... A little basket 
containing our luncheon was hung on our arms, and 
we were given a little book of Pibrac's quatrains, 
of which we had to learn several pages every day. 
Along with this a switch was put in our hands, and 
we were charged to prevent the turkeys from going 
where they ought not. " It is pretended that at this 
period she received her first declaration of love, and 
that from a young peasant. Did she recall it on the 
day of her marriage with the great King ? 

She was afterwards placed in a convent of Ursu- 
lines at Niort, and subsequently in that of the 
Ursulines of rue Saint-Jacques at Paris, where she 
abjured Protestantism, but not without a vigorous 
resistance. She already possessed that gift of pleas- 
ing which she retained throughout her life. " In my 
childhood," she has said herself, ^ "I was the best 
little creature that you can imagine. ... I was 
really what is called a good child, so much so that 
everybody loved me. . . . When I was a little 

1 Letter of July 28, 1646. 2 Entretiens de Safnt-Cyr, 



MADAME BE MAIN TENON IN 1682 91 

larger I lived in the convents ; you know how much 
I was loved by my mistresses and my companions. 
... I thought of nothing but obliging them and 
making myself their servant from morning to night." 

An orphan and without any resources, Fran§oise 
d'Aubign^, at the age of seventeen, was married in 
1652 to the famous poet Scarron, who was only forty- 
two years old, but paralyzed, crippled in all his mem- 
bers, — Scarron, the burlesque author, the buffoon 
'par excellence^ who demands a brevet as Queen's 
invalid, laughs at his afflictions, derides himself and 
his pains, and who, while resembling, as he said, a 
letter Z, while "having his arms shortened as well 
as his legs and his fingers as much as his arms," 
while being, in fine, "an abridgment of human 
misery," amuses all the French social world by his 
inexhaustible fancy, his frank, Gallic, Rabelaisian 
gaiety. When the marriage contract is drawn up, 
Scarron declares that he acknowledges in his future 
wife four louis of income, two large and roguish 
eyes, a very fine figure, a pair of beautiful hands, 
and much wit. The notary asks him what settle- 
ment he proposes to make on his wife. " Immortal- 
ity," he answers. 

What tact must not a girl of seventeen have needed 
to make herself respected in the society of the bur- 
lesque poet who said : " I shall not make her commit 
any follies, but I shall teach her a good many." 
Just the contrary is what will happen. Frangoise 
d'Aubign^ will moralize Scarron. She will make 



92 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

his salon one of the most distinguished social centres 
of Paris. The best people will regard it as an honor 
to be admitted there. A young noble of the court 
will be heard to say : " If it were a question of tak- 
ing liberties with the Queen or with Madame 
Scarron, I would not deliberate: I would sooner 
take them with the Queen." Even Ninon de Len- 
clos, Scarron's friend, will bow before such virtue. 
And yet it is not admirers, aspirants, who are lack- 
ing to the poet's wife, the helle Indienne, as people 
like to call her, the siren of whom Petitot has made 
such a charming picture in enamel, and whom 
Mademoiselle de Scuddry celebrates in enthusiastic 
terms in her romance Clelie, under the pseudonym 
of Lyrianne. Queen Christina of Sweden says to 
Scarron himself that she is not surprised to find him 
the gayest man in Paris, in spite of his afflictions, 
seeing that he has the most amiable wife in Paris. 

With so good and charming a companion the poor 
poet has less merit in supporting pain more patiently 
than the stoics of antiquity. He died in October, 
1660, in very Christian sentiments, and says on his 
deathbed : " My only regret is that I can leave no 
property to my wife, whom I have every imaginable 
reason to be satisfied with." 

As a widow Madame Scarron seeks esteem, not 
love. To please while remaining virtuous, to en- 
dure, if need be, privations and even poverty, but to 
win the title of a strong woman, to deserve the sym- 
pathy and approbation of honest people, such is the 



MADAME BE MAINTENOW IN 1682 9P> 

aim of all her efforts. Well though very simply 
dressed; discreet and modest, intelligent and dis- 
tinguished, with that inborn elegance which luxury 
cannot give and which only comes by nature ; pious 
with a sincere and gentle piety; less occupied with 
herself than with others; talking well and, which 
is much rarer, knowing how to listen; taking an 
interest in the joys and sorrows of her friends; skil- 
ful in amusing and consoling them; she is justly 
regarded as one of the most amiable and superior 
women in Paris. Economical and simple in her 
tastes, she makes her accounts balance perfectly, 
thanks to an annual pension of two thousand livres 
granted her by Queen Anne of Austria. She is 
cordially received by Mesdames de Sevignd, de Cou- 
langes, de La Fayette, d'Albret, de Richelieu. This 
is the most tranquil and doubtless the happiest 
period of her life. But the death of her benefac- 
tress, the Queen-mother (January 20, 1666), deprives 
her of the pension which is her only resource. A 
noble who is very rich, but old and a debauchee, 
asks her in marriage, but she refuses him. She is 
on the point of expatriating herself to follow the 
Princess de Nemours, who is about to marry the 
King of Portugal. Her star retains her in France, 
where she will one day be almost Queen. She 
writes to Mademoiselle d'Artigny: "Contrive for 
me, I entreat you, the honor of being presented to 
Madame de Montespan when I go to bid you adieu; 
so that I may not have to reproach myself with 



94 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

having quitted France without having seen its won- 
der." Madame de Montespan is not yet the mis- 
tress of Louis XIV., but her already famous beauty 
and her position as lady of the Queen's palace gives 
her influence. She finds Madame Scarron charming 
and obtains the renewal of her pension of two thou- 
sand livres, which prevents her going to Portugal. 

Rejoiced at this solution of her difficulties, the 
beautiful widow, wholly occupied with serious books 
and works of charity, reading the Book of Job and 
the maxims of La Rochefoucauld, visiting the poor 
and bestowing alms in spite of the slenderness of 
her income, installs herself very modestly in a small 
apartment on the rue des Tournelles. Here it is 
that capricious Fortune is coming to surprise her. 
Madame de Montespan has become the mistress of 
the King. Already she has had two children by 
him: a daughter, born in 1669, who will live but 
three years; and a son, born in 1670, who will be 
the Duke du Maine. These two infants, whose 
birth is still a mystery, need an intelligent, devoted, 
discreet woman to bring them up. Madame de 
Montespan thinks of Madame Scarron. The wife 
of Colbert, the great minister, had willingly under- 
taken charge of the son and daughter of Louis XIV. 
and Mademoiselle de La Valli^re. Madame Scarron, 
solicited by the King himself, accepts the offer made 
her in 1670. She becomes the governess, the second 
mother, of the children of Louis XIV. and Madame 
de Montespan. To conceal their existence they are 



3IABAME BE MAINTENON IN 1682 95 

each placed separately, with a nurse, in a little house 
outside of Paris. Leaving her friends, giving up 
society, risking the loss of her reputation by a sin- 
gular mystery, Madame Scarron courageously sacri- 
fices herself to her new r61e. The family of adultery 
goes on increasing. The birth of the Count de 
Vexin comes in 1672, of Mademoiselle de Nantes 
(the future Duchess de Bourbon) in 1673, of Made- 
moiselle de Tours in 1674. According to Madame 
de Caylus, Madame Scarron is sent for each time. 
She hides the baby under her scarf and herself under 
a mask and takes a cab to Paris, dreading lest the 
infant may begin to cry while on the road. In 1672 
she established herself in a large isolated house not 
far from Vaugirard. Madame de Coulanges writes 
at this time to Madame de S^vignd : " As for Ma- 
dame Scarron, her life is an astonishing sort of 
thing. Without exception not a soul has inter- 
course with her." Louis XIV., prejudiced at first 
against the governess, whom he characterized as a 
blue-stocking, begins to recognize her good quali- 
ties. Her pension is increased from two thousand to 
six thousand livres. 

On December 20, 1673, the legitimation of the 
Duke du Maine, the Count de Vexin, and Mademoi- 
selle de Tours is registered. The following year 
these three children are domiciled at Versailles with 
Madame Scarron. She writes to her brother, July 
25, 1674: "The life people lead here is very dissi- 
pated and the days pass quickly. All my little 



96 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

Princes are established here, and I think forever. 
That, like everything else, has its good and bad 
side." 

As soon as she set foot at court, Madame Scarron 
laid down a programme for herself. " There is noth- 
ing cleverer than irreproachable conduct," she says. 
At first Madame de Montespan congratulates herself 
on having near her a person so amiable, so witty, 
and such good company. But this fancy does not 
last long. The haughty favorite soon begins to tor- 
ment the modest governess. Spats, reconciliations, 
little tiffs, begin. Madame Scarron does not attack ; 
she defends herself. Louis XIV. does her justice 
and recognizes her rare merits. At the close of the 
year 1674 he gives her the money necessary to pur- 
chase the estate of Maintenon, fourteen leagues from 
Paris, ten from Versailles, and four from Chartres. 
The governess of the legitimated children is thence- 
forth styled the Marquise de Maintenon. 

Were there on her side the skilfully devised 
Machiavelian calculations, the subtle hypocrisies, 
that her detractors have supposed? We do not 
believe it. Is it her fault if her interests are at one 
with her duties, if piety, which to her is an end in 
itself, is to become a means in consequence of unfore- 
seen circumstances? At bottom, what does she 
desire above all things? To convert Louis XIV. 
Does she wish the adulterous commerce of the sov- 
ereign and Madame de Montespan to cease? Yes. 
Does she wish to become the King's mistress ? No. 



MADAME BE MAIN TEN ON IN 16S2 97 

When Louis XIV., tired of the pride and violence 
of the favorite, departs from her, does Madame de 
Maintenon try to monopolize him for herself? Not 
at all. It is Mademoiselle de Fontanges who will 
pick up the left-hand sceptre. And when Mademoi- 
selle de Fontanges dies, will Madame de Maintenon 
have the notion of replacing her? In no wise. She 
will have but one object : to bring back the King to 
the Queen, and this object she will attain. 

And yet people will say, she is the friend of 
Madame de Montespan, she is under obligations to 
her. That is true; but never, even at the time 
when she had most need of her benefactress, has she 
said a word of approbation, of encouragement, for 
adultery. Never has she sacrificed her principles. 
The fact of interesting oneself in natural children, 
of bringing them up in a Christian manner, of pity- 
ing and loving them, is no more a laudation of their 
origin than the establishment of a foundling asylum 
is the consecration of adultery or concubinage. Is 
Madame de Maintenon reproached for her amiability, 
her attentions to Madame de Montespan ? But who 
was there at the court of Louis XIV. who did not 
show respect to the favorite ? Did not the Queen 
herself treat her kindly and accept her first as her 
lady of the palace and afterwards as superintendent 
of her household? 

There are also many who accuse Madame de Main- 
tenon of hypocrisy in her inclination to withdraw, 
and the promises she made herself to leave the court 



98 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

as soon as possible'. But why forget that ambition, 
like love, has its alternations of ardor and lassitude, 
of passion and satiety? Do not the fruits one has 
most desired often lose their savor the moment they 
are possessed ? And is not reality the grave of hope ? 
Madame de Maintenon one day said she would be an 
enigma to posterity. Nevertheless she will only be 
an enigma to herself. Ambitious and undeceived, 
eager for honors whose nothingness she will be sen- 
sible of, there will be no hypocrisy in her soul, but 
plenty of contradictions. 

The great defect of historians is their desire to 
find characters all of a piece. In nearly all natures 
there is both good and evil, truth and falsehood, 
strength and weakness. Madame de Maintenon 
does not escape this common law. She merits 
neither the odious satires of her adversaries nor the 
exaggerated praises of her admirers. But we do not 
hesitate to declare, for our own part, that when it is 
a question of judging this celebrated woman, the 
balance ought, in our opinion, to lean to the side of 
eulogy rather than to that of criticism. 

Madame de Maintenon 's detractors reckon it a 
crime in her to have injured Madame de Montespan 
by the pious counsels she gave to Louis XIV. 
Would they prefer then that she should have made 
herself the pander of adultery, and employed her 
intelligence in reconciling the King with his mis- 
tress ? Do they prefer the part of a go-between to 
that of a moralizer ? She is engaged to educate the 



MADAME BE MAINTENON IN 1682 99 

cliildren of Madame de Montespan, but certainly not 
to favorize her amours. And yet she is very well 
aware of the malevolence, the calumnies, to which 
her attitude may give rise. One of the Entretiens de 
Saint-Oyr proves this. "So there we were, irre- 
trievably embroiled," she says, "without having had 
any intention of breaking off, and even without hav- 
ing formally done so. It certainly was not my fault, 
and yet if either of us had any reason to complain it 
was she, for she could say with truth: 'I was the 
cause of her elevation, I gained her the King's 
acquaintance and approval; she is becoming the 
favorite and I am driven away.' It is true I had 
many things to say in return. For was I wrong in 
accepting the King's friendship on the conditions I 
had laid down ? Was I wrong in having given him 
good advice ? Did not Madame de Montespan know 
that I would neglect no means of breaking off her 
guilty commerce ? " 

A curious thing is the respective situations of 
these two women, both so witty and intelligent, of 
whom Louis XIV. said: "I had more trouble to 
make peace between them than to re-establish it in 
Turkey." Madame de Maintenon wrote, June 14, 
1679 : " Madame de Montespan is absolutely deter- 
mined to believe that I am trying to be the King's 
mistress. 'But,' said I to her, 'are there three of us 
then?' — 'Yes,' she answered me, 'I in name, that 
girl [Mademoiselle de Fontanges] in fact, and you 
in heart. ' I replied that she paid too great heed to 



IQO THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

her resentment. She answered that she knew my 
artifices and was only sorry that she had not given 
heed to her presentiments. She reproached me with 
the presents she had given me and with those of the 
King, and said she had nourished me and I was 
stifling her. Do you understand the situation? It 
is a curious thing that we cannot live together, and 
yet cannot separate. I love her and can never per- 
suade myself that she hates me." Again Madame 
de Maintenon writes, in 1680 : " To-day Madame de 
Montespan and I took a walk together arm in arm 
and laughing a good deal ; we are on none the better 
terms for that." 

Sovereigns or private persons, princesses or civil- 
ians' wives, great ladies or women of the people, 
how much they resemble each other! Had not La 
Bruy^re good reason to say : " At court and in the 
city there are the same passions, the same frailties, 
the same pettiness, the same caprices. ... If he has 
good eyes, one may easily see the little town, the 
rue Saint-Denis, transported as it were to Ver- 
sailles and Fontainebleau." 

Madame de Montespan, even while irritated with 
the clever governess, must, after all, have recognized 
that she was undergoing a sort of retributive pun- 
ishment. Had she not supplanted her own friend. 
Mademoiselle de La Valliere ? Had she not shame- 
fully deceived Queen Marie Ther^se? Does not 
her conscience tell her that her chastisement is 
deserved? She is vanquished. Let her resign her- 



MADAME DE MAINTENON IN 1682 101 

self! Doubtless it is painful for this haughty Morte- 
mart, who has always held her own with the great 
King, who has looked the demigod in the face, to 
humble herself before a woman she had rescued 
from poverty, before a governess who is seven years 
older than herself. But what can be done about it? 

Thenceforward Madame de Maintenon's position 
is beyond attack. The politic woman has no longer 
any need to make a stepping-stone of the cradle of 
the legitimated. It is not she who brings up the 
last two children of Madame de Montespan and 
Louis XIV. (the future Duchess of Orleans and the 
Count de Toulouse). She has now her own settled 
place at court. She is sought for and flattered. 
When she spends a few days at her chateau of 
Maintenon, the greatest personages go there to pay 
their homage. Madame de S^vign^ writes concern- 
ing her, July 17, 1680 : " People no longer approach 
the lady without fear and respect, and the ministers 
pay court to her like the rest. . . . She is intro- 
ducing the King to an entirely new region ; I mean 
the commerce of friendship and conversation, with- 
out chicanery and without constraint; he appears 
charmed with it." 

At the age of ten years the little Duke du Maine, 
Madame de Maintenon's cherished pupil, had just 
passed out of the hands of men. Louis XIV. re- 
warded the care she had bestowed on this child by 
appointing her lady of the bedchamber to the Dau- 
phiness. When this princess arrives in France she 



102 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

is met at Schlestadt by Bossuet and Madame de 
Maintenon. "If," writes Madame de Sdvignd, "Ma- 
dame the Dauphiness fancies that all the men and 
■women have as much wit as these specimens, she will 
be greatly deceived; truly, it is a great advantage 
to be of the first order."! Madame de Maintenon 
possesses the boon she had so much desired, consid- 
eration. The most eminent prelates hold her in high 
esteem. The devout party regard her as an oracle. 
It is she who is laboring at the King's conversion, 
she who is bringing him back to the Queen, she 
who, with insinuating and gentle eloquence, pleads 
at court the cause of morality and religion. 

1 Letter of Feb. 14, 1680. 



VI 

THE BAVAEIAN" DAUPHINESS 

AT the side of those imperious types which 
impose themselves on the attention of poster- 
ity, there is a place in history for more tranquil, 
gentler, and more meditative figures who, in life, 
remained in the shade, in silence, and who may be 
said to retain a sort of modesty and reserve even 
beyond the tomb. Princesses are met with whom 
the tumult of the world, the dclat of power, the 
splendor of luxury, could not detach from their 
native melancholy; who have been humble and timid 
in the midst of grandeurs; who have made a soli- 
tude for themselves, and who, to use Bossuet's ex- 
pression, have found in their oratories, spite of all 
the agitations of the court, the Carmel of Elias, the 
desert of John, the mountain which so often wit- 
nessed the lamentations of Jesus. 

There is a blending of benevolence and sadness, 
of tenderness and chagrin, of compassion and kind- 
ness, in the smile of these women. They seem to 
have occupied the highest situations only to in- 
spire us with philosophic reflections and Christian 

103 



104 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

thoughts, to prove to us by their example that hap- 
piness does not dwell in palaces, that external things 
do not impart real joys, that " grandeur is a dream, 
youth a flower that fades, health but a deceptive 
name."^ We do not sufficiently contemplate these 
plaintive, pale, and melancholy apparitions of his- 
tory. But if one takes pains to study them seriously, 
he soon becomes attached to them, he prefers these 
Christian types to the visages of proud and sensual 
women which reflect all the passions of paganism. 
One is pleased with half tints after too glaring colors ; 
noise makes silence beloved, and the eye, wearied 
by the rays of a too vivid flame, finds repose in 
softer lustre. 

Among the number of these wise and prudent 
women whose career is not fruitful in dramatic 
catastrophes, but is none the less full of useful les- 
sons, must be placed Marie Anne Christine Victoire, 
daughter of the Elector Ferdinand, Duke of Bavaria, 
and Dauphiness of France. The life of this Prin- 
cess, born in 1660, married in 1680 to the son of 
Louis XIV., died at Versailles in 1690, at the age 
of twenty-nine, may be summed up in one word: 
melancholy. She was one of those women, disgusted 
with earth and aspiring to heaven, of whom Bossuet 
might have said, as he did of the Queen: "The 
earth, her origin and sepulchre, is not yet low 
enough to receive her; she would like to disappear 

1 Bossuet, Oraison funebre de la reine 3Iarie-TheresQ, 



THE BAVABIAN BAUPRINESS 105 

altogether before the majesty of the King of kings." 
Her education had been austere. The court of 
Munich resembled a convent. "People rose there 
at six o'clock every morning, heard Mass at nine, 
dined at ten, were present every day at Vespers, and 
by six in the evening there was no one there, that 
being the hour when they took their supper in order 
to go to bed at seven." ^ 

Far from being dazzled by her new fortune, the 
young Princess did not leave the pious and patri- 
archal court where she passed her childhood without 
profound regret. She produced a good impression 
in her new home as soon as she made her appear- 
ance. She was not beautiful, but her grace, her 
manners, her natural dignity, and still more, her 
merit, her learning, and her kindness gave her charm. 
One of the persons sent by Louis XIV. to meet her 
wrote to the King : " Madame the Dauphiness is not 
pretty. Sire ; but pass over the first glance and you 
will be very well content with her." She received 
Bossuet, who had gone to meet her at Schlestadt, with 
perfect courtesy. "I take an interest in all you 
have taught M. the Dauphin," she said to him; "do 
not, I beg you, refuse to give me your instructions 
also, and be assured that I will endeavor to profit by 
them." 

The great bishop was struck by the knowledge of 
the Princess. She had an accurate acquaintance 

1 Memoires de Coulanges. 



103 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

with all the languages spoken in Europe, and even 
with the language of the Church, which had been 
taught her in childhood.^ Bossuet was sincere when 
he said of her, three years later: "We admired her 
as soon as she appeared, and the King has confirmed 
our judgment. "2 Appointed First Almoner to the 
Dauphiness, he accompanied her from Schlestadt to 
Versailles. During the journey a ceremony was 
performed which strongly contrasted with the trans- 
ports of joy the Princess had encountered on her 
way ever since entering France. On Wednesday, 
March 6, 1680, Bossuet put the ashes on her fore- 
head in the seignorial chapel of the chateau of 
Brignicourt-sur-Saulx. "Woman," said he, "re- 
member that thou wert taken from the dust and must 
one day return to it." Alas! the prediction was 
accomplished ten years later, and the Princess, 
beside whose deathbed Bossuet stood, reminded him 
of the solemn words of that Ash Wednesday.^ 

Louis XIV. gave his daughter-in-law the most 
friendly and courteous reception. She had Madame 
the Duchess de Richelieu for lady of honor, Madame 
de Maintenon for second lady of the bedchamber, 
and Mesdemoiselles de Laval, de Biron, de Gontaut, 
de Tonnesse, de Jarnac, de Rambures, as maids of 



1 Pierre de La Broue, Bishop of Mirepoix, Oraison funebre de la 
Dauphine. 

2 Bossuet, Oraison funebre de la reine Marie- Therese. 

2 See the learned and remarkable work of M. Floquet : Bossuet 
precepteur du Dauphin. 



THE BAVARIAN DAUPHINESS 107 

honor. The King came after dinner to spend sev- 
eral hours in the room of the Princess, where he 
found Madame de Maintenon, and to this visit he 
devoted the time he had been accustomed to pass 
with Madame de Montespan. 

The early years of the marriage of the Dauphiness 
were tranquil. Her husband, who was but a year 
older than she, showed at this time a sincere attach- 
ment for her. The birth of their son, the Duke of 
Burgundy, caused transports of joy not only at court 
but throughout France. In the night of August 
5-6, 1682, when the time of her delivery drew nigh, 
Louis XIV. had a mattress carried into the chamber 
of the Dauphiness, where he spent the night with 
the Queen. He encouraged his daughter-in-law with 
affectionate words. Several times he supported her 
while she walked up and down in the chamber, 
telling her he would be very well satisfied if she had 
a daughter, providing she suffered less and were 
promptly delivered. All the places and avenues of 
Versailles were made as light as day by a multitude 
of lanterns and torches carried by persons awaiting 
the happy event. The next day, when the Princess 
had brought a son ^ into the world, the joy bordered 
on delirium. Everybody took the liberty of embrac- 
ing the King. 2 Spinola bit his finger in the warmth 

1 The Dauphiness was brought to bed in the Superintendent's 
pavilion, situated at the extremity of the south wing, opposite the 
Swiss lake. 

2 Abb6 de Choisy, Memoires pour servir a Thistoire de Louis 
XIV. 



108 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

of his enthusiasm, and hearing him cry out: "Sire," 
said he, " I ask Your Majesty's pardon ; but if I had 
not bitten you, you would not have paid any atten- 
tion to me." There were dances, illuminations, 
transports, everywhere. The people who were mak- 
ing bonfires burned even the flooring intended for 
the grand gallery. "Let them alone," said Louis 
XIV., smiling; "we will have other flooring. " He 
showed the newly born to the crowd, and the air 
resounded with enthusiastic acclamations. 

Madame de Maintenon wrote to her friend, Ma- 
dame de Saint-Geran, the next day, August 7, 1682: 
"The King has made a very fine present to Madame 
the Dauphiness ; he has had the little prince in his 
arms for a moment. He congratulated Monseigneur 
like a friend ; he gave the first tidings to the Queen ; 
in fine, everybody says he is adorable ; Madame de 
Montespan is withering at our joy. We are living 
with every appearance of sincere friendship. Some 
people say I want to put myself in her place, not 
knowing either my aversion for that sort of com- 
merce nor the aversion I wish to inspire in the King 
for it. Some think that I wish to bring her back to 
God. There is a better made heart for which I have 
greater hopes." 

This heart, that of Louis XIV., was daily inclin- 
ing more toward religion. The time of scandals was 
over. Every cloud had disappeared from the con- 
jugal sky of Louis XIV. and Marie Ther^se. The 
quarrels of Madame de Montespan and Madame de 



THE BAVAEIAN DAUPUINESS 109 

Maintenon were appeased. These two ladies no 
longer visited each other. But whenever they met 
elsewhere they spoke and even held conversations so 
lively and cordial in appearance that any one who 
had seen them and was not conversant with court 
intrigues would have thought them the best friends 
in the world. ^ Speaking of Madame de Maintenon, 
the Queen said gratefully: "The King has never 
treated me with so much tenderness as since he lis•^ 
tened to her." The year 1683 promised to be a happy 
one for the saintly and gentle companion of Louis 
XIV. But death was approaching rapidly. A 
terrible malady was about to carry off the Queen, 
who was only forty-five years old. 

This good and virtuous princess of whom Bossuet 
has said: "She goes with the Lamb, for she is 
worthy " ; this Queen who wore the lilied mantle as 
if it were haircloth; this woman who was one of 
those elect souls of whom the Apostle Saint John 
says : " They are without spot before the throne of 
God, sine maculd enim sunt ante thronum Dei " ; this 
pious Marie Thdrdse died, as she had lived, with 
angelic sweetness. Louis XIV., who had caused 
her so many troubles, mourned for her sincerely. 
"What!" he cried, "there is no more a Queen in 
France. What! I am a widower; I could never 
have believed it, and yet I am so, and of the most 
meritorious princess. . . . This is the first pain 
she has ever given me." 

1 Souvenirs de Madame de Caylus. 



110 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Louis XIV., so often accused of coldness and 
egotism, had on the contrary a great fund of kind- 
ness. He had been too affectionate a son to be an 
absolutely bad husband. He wrote on the subject of 
the death of Anne of Austria, in the Memoirs 
intended for the Dauphin: "However great might 
be the courage on which I wished to pique myself, 
it was impossible that a son bound by the ties of 
nature could see his mother die without excessive 
grief, since even those toward whom she had acted 
as an enemy could not avoid regretting her, and 
avowing that there had never been a more sincere 
piety, a more intrepid firmness, more generous a 
bounty. The vigor with which this princess had 
maintained my dignity when I could not myself de- 
fend it, was the most important and useful service 
that could ever be rendered me. . . . My respect for 
her was not one of those constrained duties which are 
performed for the sake of decorum. The habit I had 
formed of having ordinarily the same dwelling and 
the same table with her, the assiduity with which I 
was seen to visit her several times every day, no 
matter how pressing my affairs might be, were not 
a law I had imposed on myself for reasons of State, 
but a sign of the pleasure I took in her company." 

No ; whatever people may say, the man who wrote 
these lines was not wanting in heart. No one has 
felt more keenly that incomparable grief, that rend- 
ing which tears from you more than half your soul : 
the loss of a mother. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, 



THE BAVAUIAN DAVPHINESB 111 

an ocular witness of the death of Anne of Austria, 
says that at the moment when she yielded her last 
breath, Louis XIV. " was stifling ; they threw water 
on him; he was suffocating." All night long he 
shed torrents of tears. 

The death of Queen Marie Th^rese did not cause 
him such painful anguish, but still he manifested 
a keen sensibility on this occasion. "The court," 
says Madame de Caylus, " was pained by his grief. 
That of Madame de Maintenon, which I observed 
very closely, seemed to me sincere and founded upon 
esteem and gratitude. I would not say as much for 
the tears of Madame de Montespan, whom I remember 
to have seen entering Madame de Maintenon 's apart- 
ments, but I cannot say why or wherefore. All that 
I know is that she wept a good deal and that all her 
actions seemed to show a trouble founded on that of 
her mind, and perhaps on the fear of falling into the 
hands of her husband." 

Marie Th^r^se died July 30, 1683, at the chateau 
of Versailles, in the bedchamber which has a view 
of the Orangery and also of the Swiss lake, and of 
which we have already had several occasions to 
speak. 1 After the Queen's death this room was 
occupied by the Dauphiness, who, from the hierarchi- 
cal point of view, had become the principal woman 
of the court. The King wished to make the salon 
of his daughter-in-law the most brilliant centre in 

1 Koom No. 115 of the Notice du Musee de Versailles. 



112 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

France. He sometimes went to see her, taking with 
him his rarest jewels and stuffs for her to select from ; 
the rest were divided into lots which the maids of 
honor and ladies who had been presented drew lots 
for, or perhaps had the honor of playing for with 
her, and even with the King. While hoca was in 
fashion, and before the King had wisely interdicted 
so dangerous a game, he played it in the apartments 
of Madame the Dauphiness; but when he lost he 
paid as many louis as the others had staked small 
pieces.^ 

However, in spite of all the court amusements, the 
Dauphiness yielded to an invincible sadness. She 
was stifling in this atmosphere of intrigues, agita- 
tions, and tumultuous pleasures. Disgusted with 
that "region where joys are visible but false, and 
whose vexations hidden but real,"^ where "eagerness 
for the spectacles, the ^clat, and the applause at the 
theatres of Moli^re and Harlequin, for banquets, 
hunts, ballets, and tourneys conceals so many anxie- 
ties and fears," she found like Bruy^re that "a 
healthy mind acquires at court a taste for solitude 
and retreat." In spite of all his obliging atten- 
tions, Louis XIV. could not succeed in making 
her love the world nor induce her to hold court 
receptions. She passed her life sadly in the small 
rooms contiguous to her Versailles apartments with 



1 Souvenirs de Madame de Caylus. 

2 La Bruyere, De la Cour. 



THE BAVARIAN DAUPHINESS 113 

a German woman whom she liked, and. who was 
called La Bessola, as her sole companion. 

This chambermaid, whom the Princess Palatine 
represents under an odious aspect, had nothing bad 
about her, according to Madame de Caylus. Never- 
theless, she was accused of keeping the princess 
sequestrated, as one might say, and preventing her 
from responding to the King's gracious attentions. 
The Dauphin, tired of the perpetual t^te-a-t^te of his 
wife and La Bessola, who always talked in German, 
a language he was unacquainted with, sought other 
society. He was smitten with Mademoiselle de 
Rambures, one of his wife's maids of honor, and he 
fell into the habit of spending most of his time at 
the house of his natural sister, the beautiful and 
witty Princess de Conti, the daughter of Louis XIV. 
and Mademoiselle de La Valli^re. 

The Dauphiness did not even try to retain a heart 
which was escaping from her. Either through 
timidity or lack of self-confidence, she accepted her 
lot with painful resignation, while suffering bitterly 
on account of it. Hopeless of consoling her, Louis 
XIV. left her to the solitude from which nothing 
could induce her to emerge, and she ended by being 
deserted by all the court as well as by the King. 
Madame de Caylus remarks with much justice: 
"Perhaps the good qualities of the Princess contrib- 
uted to her isolation. The enemy of scandal and 
mockery, she could neither endure nor comprehend 
the raillery and malignant style of the court, all the 



114 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

less because she did not understand its subtleties.''' 
Madame de Caylus adds this judicious observation: 
"I have seen foreigners, even those whose spirit 
seemed most friendly toward French manners, some- 
times disconcerted by our continual irony." 

A painting by Delutel, after Mignard,^ now hung 
in the Hall of the Queen's Guards, represents the 
Dauphiness surrounded by her husband and her 
three sons. The Dauphin, wearing a red velvet coat, 
is sitting near a table, caressing a dog. The Prin- 
cess is at the other side of the table, with the little 
Duke of Berry 2 on her lap. In front of her the 
Duke of Anjou,^ in a blue robe, is sitting on a cush- 
ion ; the Duke of Burgundy, in a red robe and wear- 
ing the order of the Holy Spirit, is standing up and 
holding a lance. In the air two Loves support a 
rich drapery with one hand and scatter flowers with 
the other. This painting seems to breathe tran- 
quillity. A charming quiet and satisfaction marks 
the aspect of the Dauphiness. But the picture is 
more allegorical than real, and does not show the 
Princess as she actually was. Her vexations, her 
sufferings, her gloomy presentiments, do not appear 
in it. This is not the exact image of the woman 
about whom Madame de La Fayette says in her 
Memoirs: "This poor Princess sees nothing but 

1 No. 2116 of tlie Notice du Musee de Versailles. 

2 The Duke of Berry, born August 31, 1686. 

3 The Duke of Anjou (the future PhUip V, of Spain), bom 
December 19, 1683. 



THE BAVABIAN DAUPHINES8 115 

the worst for herself and takes no part whatever in 
festivities. She has very bad health and a sad dis- 
position which, added to the little consideration she 
enjoys, deprives her of the pleasure which any one 
except the Princess of Bavaria would feel in arriv- 
ing at almost the first place in the world." 

Far from rejoicing at her lofty fortune, she longed 
for Germany where her childhood had passed so 
modestly, and said to another German woman, 
Madame the Duchess of Orleans (the Princess Pala- 
tine): "We are both of us very unhappy, but the 
difference between us is that you tried to avoid it as 
much as you could, while I desired with all my might 
to come here ; therefore I have deserved my unhap- 
piness more than you." She thought like Massillon 
that "grandeur is a weight which wearies," "that 
nothing which must pass away can be great; it is 
but a theatrical decoration; death closes the scene 
and the representation; each lays aside the pomps 
belonging to his character and his fictitious titles, 
and both sovereign and slave are reduced to their 
nothingness and primitive vileness." 

The Dauphiness had a presentiment of her ap- 
proaching end. People thought her mad because 
she was constantly saying that she felt herself irrev- 
ocably lost. But the poor Princess, who well knew 
that her moral and physical sufferings were but too 
real, smiled sadly when people seemed incredulous 
concerning them. "I shall have to die to justify 
myself," said she. Bossuet has remarked in his 



116 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

funeral oration on Queen Marie Th^r^se: "Even 
innocent souls have the tears and the bitterness of 
penitence." Melancholy and piety are not incom- 
patible ; no sky is so clear as to have no clouds, and 
Christ Himself has wept. 

Short in duration, long in suffering, the life of 
the Dauphiness was hidden beneath a sombre veil. 
This young Princess, for whom Providence had at 
first seemed to reserve the most brilliant destiny, 
was to die at the age of twenty-nine, worn out by 
chagrin and consumed by languor. Convinced that 
her last delivery had killed her, she tenderly em- 
braced her son, the Duke of Berry, and as she gave 
him her blessing, she repeated this line of Andro- 
mache : — 

" Ah I mon fils, que tes jours coutent cher k ta mere ! " ^ 

The earth, which was like an exile to her, seemed to 
her, moreover, unworthy of regrets. She died "will- 
ingly and with calmness," according to the expres- 
sion of her compatriot the Duchess of Orleans. A 
few hours before breathing her last she had said to 
this Princess, her companion in misfortune: "To- 
day I shall prove that I have not been mad in com- 
plaining of my sufferings." 

1 Ah I my sou, how dear thy life has cost thy mother I 



VII 

THE MAKKIAGE OF MADAME DE MAIN TENON 

" T~ HAVE had an astonishing fortune, but it is 

-1- not my work. I am where you see me with- 
out having desired it, or hoped for it, or foreseen it. 
I say this only to you, because the world would not 
believe it." 

Thus Madame de Maintenon expressed herself in 
one of her conversations with the Demoiselles of 
Saint-Cyr, and we believe this appreciation is exact. 

The premature death of the Queen was an event 
which surprised everybody. Twenty-three years 
before, August 26, 1660, she who then called herself 
Madame Scarron had just been present at the solemn 
entry of Louis XIV. and Marie Th^rese into their 
good city of Paris. She wrote the next day to her 
friend, Madame de Villarceaux: "I do not think 
anything so beautiful can ever have been seen, and 
the Queen must have retired last night very well 
satisfied with the husband she has chosen." 

He who should then have said to the wife of the 
burlesque poet: "This husband whom you admire 
so much will one day be your own," would certainly 

117 



118 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

have seemed to her a strange prophet. The fictions 
of romance are not nearly so prodigious as the reali- 
ties of history, and when Madame de Maintenon at 
the age of fifty, saw a king of forty-seven, and what 
a king! come to offer to be her husband, she must 
have thought herself the plaything of a dream. One 
would be tempted to believe that she could only 
have been the companion of an aging sovereign who 
had already lost the greater part of his prestige. 
But the absolute contrary is true. 

The year when Louis XIV. espoused Scarron's 
widow was the apogee, the zenith, of the royal star. 
Never had the sun of the great King been more 
imposing, nor his haughty device: Nee pluribus 
impar^ more dazzling. It was the epoch when, in 
face of his motionless enemies, he enlarged and for- 
tified the frontiers of the realm, conquered Stras- 
bourg, bombarded Genoa and Algiers, finished the 
luxurious constructions of his splendid Versailles, 
was the terror of Europe and the idol of France. 

And yet Louis XIV. was in love with Madame 
de Maintenon while Madame de Maintenon was not 
in love with Louis XIV. ! She had veneration, 
gratitude, devotion for him, but not love. There is 
nothing surprising in that. Women, in fact, are 
seldom enamoured of the men to whom they owe 
their fortune. In general, they like better to protect 
than to be protected. They find it sweeter to 
inspire gratitude than to experience it. What they 
like best of all is to show their superiority, and, 



MARRIAGE OF MABAME BE MAIN TEN ON 119 

precisely because their sex seems to be condemned 
by nature to a dependent situation, they are happy 
when the rSles are exchanged, when it is they who 
dominate, protect, oblige. Madame de Maintenon 
owed Louis XIV. too much to be enamoured of him. 

Let us add that the age at which she married him 
was no longer that of love, and that the simplicity, 
the freshness of ideas and sentiments of a young 
ingSnue from across the Rhine cannot be expected in 
a woman of fifty. Madame de Maintenon felt that 
the King would have been ridiculous if he had loved 
her as he did Mademoiselle de La Valli^re, and that 
the time for erotic ecstasies was irrevocably passed. 
She justly reflected that Louis XIV. was faithful to 
God rather than to her, and that the fear of hell and 
the desire for salvation had the greatest share in the 
unexpected change which had been suddenly pro- 
duced in the morals of a sovereign until then so 
voluptuous and so fickle. In the Louis XIV. of 
1684 the devotee took precedence of the lover, piety 
carried the day against passion, and it was religion 
still more than tenderness, more even than habit, 
which prevented Madame de Maintenon from having 
rivals. 

To sum up, the King's sentiment for her was of 
the most complex kind. There was in it a mingling 
of religion and physical love, a calculation of rea- 
son and an impulse of the heart, an aspiration after 
the mild joys of family life and romantic inclina- 
tion, a sort of compact between French good sense, 



120 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

subjugated by the wit, tact, and wisdom of an 
eminent woman, and Spanish imagination, allured 
by the notion of having extricated this elect woman 
from poverty in order to make her almost a queen. 
Finally, it must be noted that Louis XIV., always 
spiritual, always religious, was intimately convinced 
that Madame de Maintenon had been sent to him by 
heaven for his salvation, and that the pious counsels 
of this saintly woman, who knew how to render 
devotion so amiable and attractive, seemed to him 
to be so many inspirations from on high. 

It must not be believed, however, that the affec- 
tion of Louis XIV. for Madame de Maintenon was 
purely ideal. If the soul counted in it for nearly 
all, the senses stood for something. On this head 
we shall content ourselves with invoking the testi- 
mony of the Abbe de Choisy : — ■ 

"He was unwilling to remarry," says the abb^, 
"through tenderness for his people. He already 
had three grandsons, and wisely judged that the 
princes of a second marriage might, in course of 
time, cause civil wars. On the other hand, he could 
not dispense with a wife. Madame de Maintenon 
pleased him greatly. Her gentle and insinuating 
wit promised him an agreeable intercourse capable of 
recreating him after the cares of royalty. Her per- 
son was still engaging, and her age prevented her 
from having children." 

It must not be forgotten, moreover, that the life 
of women who are veritably beautiful resembles 



MAEBIAGE OF MADAME DE MAINTENON 121 

that of nature in having its bright autumnal days, 
its Saint Martin's summer. The time of conquests 
with such women is far more prolonged than people 
ordinarily believe. The truth in respect to this is 
unknown because of a widespread prejudice which 
limits feminine successes to a certain age, and 
because lovers, being no longer flattered by the 
affection of women who are not young, sometimes 
take as much pains to hide their passion as they 
would to display it if their idols were only twenty. 
For my own part I am persuaded that men above 
forty are less pleasing than women of the same age. 
Their money, their position, or their wit may still 
procure them successes, but deprived of these ad- 
vantages they would produce no impression. On 
the other hand, women who have passed their fortieth 
year, when their beauty is real, still preserve charms 
which make them loved for themselves independ- 
ently of any advantage except their beauty. But 
this does not prevent the men who make laws and 
impose ideas from asserting that a woman of thirty 
is as old as a man of forty. To our mind, this 
theory is merely another proof of masculine fatuity. 

Madame de Maintenon is not the only example of 
a woman whose prestige has survived her youth. 
Diana of Poitiers was nineteen years older than 
Henry II. She was forty-eight when the prince 
ascended the throne, and when he died, twelve years 
later, she was still his mistress, the queen of his 
heart. The son of Madame de S^vign^ was only 



122 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

twenty-four when he became enamoured of Ninon de 
Lenclos, then fifty-five, and gave up Champmesl^, 
then in the full splendor of her youth and talent, 
for her. Like Diana of Poitiers and Ninon de Len- 
clos, Madame de Maintenon was remarkably well 
preserved. She had never had any children, and 
the regularity of her conduct had contributed to 
banish wrinkles from her noble and tranquil visage. 
She reminded one of those last fair days of autumn 
when the sun's rays, though they dazzle less, have 
none the less a penetrating softness. As the Abb6 
de Choisy says : " She was not young, but she had 
lively and brilliant eyes, her face sparkled with 
intelligence." 

Even Saint-Simon, her pitiless detractor, is obliged 
to admit " that she had much wit, incomparable grace, 
an easy and sometimes a reserved and deferential air, 
together with a manner of speech which was gentle, 
just, well-chosen as to words, and naturally eloquent 
and brief." Lamartine, that admirable genius who 
had an intuitive appreciation of things, has defined 
the sentiment of Louis XIV. better than anyone: 
" The scruples of Louis XIV. had been aided by his 
attraction toward Madame de Maintenon, a mature 
beauty, but preserved by the retirement and chastity 
of her life from that worldly evaporation which soon 
withers other women. An attachment to Madame 
de Maintenon seemed to him almost the same thing 
as an attachment to virtue itself. The charms of 
confidence and piety, intercourse with a spirit both 



MARRIAGE OF MADAME BE MAINTENON 123 

upright and refined, the pride of raising what one 
loves to one's own level, and finally, it must be said 
to the King's honor, the safe counsels he received 
from this superior woman, — all these lofty and ten- 
der emotions had increased Madame de Maintenon's 
empire, so feminine yet so virile, to absolute domi- 
nation. "^ 

It appears that Louis XIV. was barely a widower 
when he offered her his hand. M. de La Rochefou- 
cauld had taken her by the arm at the very moment 
when the Queen's soul departed, and pushing her 
into the royal apartment, had said to her : " This is 
not the time to leave the King; he needs you." 

For an instant a project of marriage between 
Louis XIV. and the Infanta of Portugal was talked 
of. But this rumor was speedily contradicted. The 
King preferred Madame de Maintenon to the young- 
est and most brilliant princesses of Europe. 

M. Lavall^e, who has made a conscientious study 
of Madame de Maintenon's life, has fixed upon the 
first six months of the year 1684 as the period when 
the secret marriage was contracted, but has not been 
able to ascertain the exact day. It was mysteriously 
celebrated in a private oratory of Versailles by the 
Archbishop of Paris, in presence of Pdre La Chaise 
who said the Mass, of Bontemps, first valet-de- 
chambre to the King, and of Madame de Montchev- 
reuil, one of Madame de Maintenon's best friends. 

1 Lamartine, ^tude sur Bossuet. 



124 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Saint-Simon speaks of it with horror as "the most 
profound humiliation, the most public, most lasting, 
most unheard-of," a humiliation "which posterity- 
will be unwilling to credit, reserved by fortune, not 
to dare mention Providence here, for the haughtiest 
of kings." This was not Arnauld's opinion: "I do 
not know," he writes, "what can be reprehended in 
this marriage contracted according to the regula- 
tions of the Church. It is not humiliating except 
in the estimation of the feeble-minded, who think 
it a weakness in the King to be able to resolve on 
marrying a woman older than himself and so far 
below him in rank. This marriage unites him with 
a person whose mind and virtue he esteems, and in 
intercourse with whom he finds innocent pleasures 
which recreate him after his great occupations." ^ 

Madame de Maintenon seemed to have attained 
the summit of her desires. But she was too intelli- 
gent, she had studied the problems of human destiny 
too closely and anxiously, not to be attacked by sad- 
ness. It was she who wrote: "Before being at court 
I can testify that I had never known ennui ; but I 
have experienced it thoroughly since then, and I 
believe I never could have borne up under it if I had 
not thought that it was there God wished me to be. 
There is no true happiness but in serving God." 

This melancholy of which the expression inces- 
santly recurs, like a plaintive and monotonous re- 

1 Amauld, letter to M. de Vancel, June 3, 1688. 



MABRIAGE OF MADAME DE MAIN TEN ON 125 

frain, in Madame de Maintenon's letters, is all the 
more striking because it is a profound instruction. 
Here we have a woman, better say a fairy, who, at 
the age when the most splendid beauties hear the 
hour strike for their retirement, arrives at a truly 
prodigious situation and at fifty years of age takes 
possession of a sovereign of forty-seven in all the 
prestige of victory and power; a woman who with 
an ability that borders on witchery supplants all 
the fairest, richest, and noblest young girls in the 
world, not one of whom would not have been proud 
to unite herself with the great King ; a woman who, 
after having been several times reduced to poverty, 
becomes, next to Louis XIV., the most impor- 
tant personality in France! And yet she is not 
happy! Is it because the King does not love her 
enough? Not at all. For the letters he writes her 
if he is obliged to remain away from her for several 
days are expressed in this fashion ; " I profit by the 
occasion of Montchevreuil's departure to assure you 
of a verity which pleases me too much to let me tire 
of telling it to you ; it is that I cherish you always, 
that I esteem you more highly than I can express, 
and that in fine, whatever affection you may have 
for me, I have still more for you, being with all my 
heart entirely yours." ^ 

If she is sad, is it because one step yet remains to 
be taken in the marvellous ladder of her fortune? 

1 Letter written during the siege of Mons, April, 1691. 



126 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Is it because she has not been able to transform her 
almost royal armchair into a throne? In no wise. 
If she had been recognized as Queen she would still 
have remained sorrowful, and her brother might still 
have said to her : " Had you then a promise of espous- 
ing the Eternal Father ? " 

However, she had converted a fickle man into a 
constant one. This quinquagenarian had fixed the 
sovereign whose heart La Valli^re with all her love, 
Montespan with all her wit, had not been able to 
retain. During more than thirty years she was to 
reign without a rival over the soul of the greatest of 
all kings, and it was not the monarch alone but the 
monarchy which was to incline respectfully before 
her. The whole court was at her feet, soliciting a 
word, a glance. As the ladies of Saint-Cyr say in 
their notes, " parliaments, princes, cities, regiments, 
addressed themselves to her as to the King; none of 
the nobles of the realm, the cardinals and bishops, 
knew any other way." She was at the culminating 
point of repute, consideration, and fortune, and yet, 
I repeat, she was not happy! 

Fdnelon wrote to her, October 4, 1689: " God often 
tries others by crosses which appear as crosses. You 
He desires to crucify by apparent prosperity, and to 
give you a clear knowledge of the nothingness of the 
world by means of the wretchedness attached to all 
that is most dazzling therein." 

Arrived at the height of grandeur, Madame de 
Maintenon experienced that disquietude, that fa- 



MABBIAGE OF MADAME DE MAINTENON 127 

tigue, whicli is nearly always the companion of satis- 
fied ambition. She was tempted to say with La 
Bruydre : " Two thirds of my life are over ; why dis- 
turb myself so much about what remains? The 
most brilliant fortune is not worth the torment which 
I give myself. Thirty years will destroy those giants 
of power which were seen to raise their heads by 
dint of violence, and all those whom I beheld so 
eagerly and by whom I hoped to attain greatness ; the 
greatest of boons, if any boons there be, is repose, 
retirement, and a place which would be one's own." 
Arrived at an incredible position, the wife of the 
greatest king on earth regretted Scarron's house — 
she says it herself — " as the duck regrets its muddy 
pond." The spectacle of grandeurs seen too near at 
hand no longer dazzled her eyes. Taught by experi- 
ence she said with La Fontaine : — 

" Que la Fortune vend ce qu'on croit qu'elle donne,"i 

and if her mind, fatigued with luxury, power, and 
glory, was transported back to the days of mediocrity, 
it was because she had then neither a marquisate of 
Maintenon nor an apartment on the same footing 
with that of Louis XIV., while she did possess two 
treasures, precious in far other wise, which were 
hers in Scarron's dwelling, but which she had lost in 
the Versailles of the Sun-King — two treasures 
really beautiful, truly inestimable, one of which is 
called Youth and the other Gaiety. 

1 How Fortune sells what slie is supposed to give I 



VIII 

MADAME DE MAESTTENON'S APARTMENT 

PEOPLE forget quickly in France, and venera- 
tion for the past is dwindling, along with every 
other sort of veneration. If time is a destroyer, man 
is a still greater one: Tempus edax, homo edacior. 
Could one believe that the apartment of Madame de 
Maintenon, that celebrated apartment in which, dur- 
ing thirty years, Louis XIV. passed a great part of 
his days and evenings, is now merely a small 
museum containing nothing but pictures of the 
battles of the French Revolution? There is not a 
single piece of furniture belonging to the time of 
Louis XIV. ; not a portrait of Madame de Main- 
tenon; not a souvenir, not an inscription which 
recalls the illustrious companion of the great King! 
Ignorant and heedless, strangers in our own land, 
we spurn with disdainful feet the debris which we 
should hold sacred. One might fancy us embar- 
rassed by the importance of our annals, the abun- 
dance of our glories. We look with indifference at 
our monuments and our ruins. How many there 
are who visit the palace of Versailles without troub- 

128 




MADAME DE MONTESPAN. 



MADAIIE BE MAINTENON'S APARTMENT 129 

ling themselves to inquire for the room of Madame 
de Maintenon or that of Marie Antoinette! It 
■would be tiresome and expensive to buy and consult 
a catalogue. 

It would be well to bring about a reaction against 
this forgetfulness of traditions, this neglect of the 
past. History needs Cuviers as nature does. His- 
tory is a great drama the decorations and scenes of 
which should be revived as well as the personages. 
To this life of the dead, movement is necessary, the 
animation of resuscitated actors whose faces are 
beheld and whose voices listened to. The work of 
reconstruction should be complete. M. Theophile 
Lavall^e has remarked in the introduction he has 
composed to a learned and curious work by M. Le 
Roi,^ that in spite of the attempts that have been 
made, it may be said that the history of the chateau 
of Versailles has yet to be written. 

"It would be fortunate in the existing period of 
revolutions, demolitions, and transformations if it 
could be done quickly; for Versailles, that great 
creation of Louis XIV., has been subjected, espe- 
cially since the establishment of historical galleries 
to such distressing alterations, that it is no longer 
recognizable save on the exterior." 

I do not deny that the general idea which presided 
over the restoration of the palace may have had a 



^ Curiosites Mstoriques sur Louis XIIL, Louis XIV., et Louis 
XV., by M. Le Roi, curator of the Library of Versailles. 



130 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

certain grandeur from the patriotic point of view. 
But considered from that of art and history it was 
absolutely bad. 

To place the annals of the Revolution and the 
Empire in the Sanctuary of Monarchy by divine right 
was to deprive the dwelling-place of the great King 
of all its distinctive features. The image of Napo- 
leon is as much out of place at Versailles as the 
statue of Louis XIV. would be on the summit of 
the VendSme column. 

It must not be forgotten, however, if one desires 
to be just, that Louis-Philippe was far from being 
free to act in the matter of the Versailles restora- 
tions. All Europe was pervaded by a revolutionary 
influence so violent that the restoration of the 
palace of Absolute Monarchy was a very difficult 
thing. 

At the moment when the work was undertaken, 
the time seemed to be drawing nigh when one might 
say with the poet : " The ruins themselves have per- 
ished." Etiam periere ruince. In his GSnie du 
Christianisme Chateaubriand had written apropos of 
Versailles : " This palace which is like a great city 
by itself, these marble stairways which seem to rise 
to the clouds, these statues, these reservoirs, these 
woods, are now either crumbling, or covered with 
moss, or withered, or overthrown." 

Count Alexandre de Laborde relates that a trav- 
eller who had seen Versailles in all its pomp in 
1789, at the opening of the States General, was curi- 



MADAME BE MAINTENON'S APARTMENT 131 

ous to return there after several years of absence. 
Hastening across the grass that was growing in the 
courts, he entered this dwelling of kings and found 
solitude, devastation, sick-beds in the gilded gal- 
leries, flocks pasturing in the gardens, statues 
thrown down and mutilated. Then plunging into 
the adjacent woods he climbed the hill of Satory, 
and as the last rays of the sun sadly illumined the 
majestic and melancholy edifice in the distance, he 
repeated this striking passage from the author of Les 
Ruines : " Here was the seat of a powerful empire ; 
these places now so deserted were once animated by 
a living multitude ; these walls, where now a gloomy 
silence reigns, resounded with festivities and shouts 
of gladness, and now behold what remains of a- vast 
domination: a lugubrious skeleton, an obscure and 
empty souvenir, a deathlike solitude; the palace 
of kings has become the resort of fallow deer! How 
has so much glory been eclipsed?"^ 

Such was, let us not forget it, the degradation of 
the chateau of Versailles, when Louis-Philippe, in 
spite of the outcries of the modern iconoclasts, 
undertook to repair it. The Citizen-King could not 
save the palace of the Sun-King otherwise than by 
placing it, as one might say, under the tutelage of 
republican and imperial glories. To obtain pardon 
for an attempt contrary to the destructive interests 
of the demagogues, he had to commission a horde of 

1 Volney, Les Buines. 



132 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

second-rate artists whose works were much, more 
remarkable for their number than their merit. 
Thence arose this confusion between the most in- 
congruous genres ; this bizarre assemblage of glories 
which seem astonished to find themselves side by- 
side; this Pantheon which has the characteristics 
of a Babel. 

Mo Lavallde remarks with much justice: "The 
National Museum has caused the interior of the 
chateau of Versailles to undergo a complete trans- 
formation. The intention of this museum was ex- 
cellent, but the execution is not on a level with it. 
Undertaken by men little versed in the history of 
the seventeenth century, it has unfortunately ruined 
the most interesting parts of the chateau, and it is 
thus that Madame de Maintenon's apartment, now 
almost unrecognizable, is occupied by three galleries 
of the campaigns of 1793, 1794, 1795. 

It is certain now that the persons employed in the 
restoration of Versailles did not even know the site 
of Madame de Maintenon's apartment. It was on 
that account that no one thought of placing a por- 
trait of this celebrated woman in the rooms she 
formerly occupied. They might easily have decided 
the point by studying Saint-Simon with moderate 
attention. But no one took this trouble. In order 
to solve the question it was necessary for M. Le 
Roi to publish, in 1848, the opuscule entitled: "In 
what part of the chateau of Versailles was the apart- 
ment of Madame de Maintenon situated?" The 



MADAME BE MxilNTENON'S APARTMENT 133 

conclusions arrived at in this work leave no further 
room for doubt. The marble staircase, or staircase 
of the Queen, ended in a vestibule. At the left of 
this vestibule is the hall of the King's guards. ^ At 
the right, opposite this hall, is Madame de Main- 
tenon's apartment. At present the traces of it are 
barely discoverable. In fact, it is not merely en- 
tirely stripped of furniture, but it has been shortened 
by the stairway constructed by Louis-Philippe in 
order to carry the marble staircase to the attics, 
which cuts in two the former apartment of the 
King's companion. 

This apartment, en suite with that of Louis XIV., 
was composed of four rooms, the two ante-chambers 
of which now form but a single room (the hall of 
1795).2 Next to these ante-chambers came Madame 
de Maintenon's bedchamber (hall of 1794).^ This 
room, which has been subdivided since the establish- 
ment of the historical galleries in order to carry the 
marble staircase up to the second story, formed in 
the time of Louis XIV. one large room lighted 
by three windows. Between the door by which it 
was entered and the chimney-piece, now destroyed,* 
was, says Saint-Simon, " the King's armchair against 



1 Room No. 120 of the Notice du Musee, by M. Soulig. 

2 Room No. 141 of the Notice du Musee. 

3 Room No. 142 of the Notice du Musee. 

* This chimney-piece was at the end of the room, at the right 
of the picture representing the combat of Boussu, No. 2295 of the 
Notice. 



134 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

the wall, a table in front of him, and a folding- 
chair around it for the minister who was working. 
On the other side of the chimney-piece a niche of 
red damask, an armchair, where Madame de Main- 
tenon sat with a small table in front of her. A lit- 
tle further off was her bed, in an alcove.^ Opposite 
the foot of the bed a door and five steps." ^ 

At home with the King, says Saint-Simon once 
more, "they were each in his armchair, with a 
table in front of each, in the two chimney corners, 
she on the side next the bed, the King with his back 
to the wall, on the side of the door of the ante-cham- 
ber, and two stools in front of his table, one for the 
minister who was coming to work and the other for 
his bag." 

In fine, there was nothing splendid about this 
apartment. "I do not know," says M. Lavall^e, 
"if the chambermaid of some parvenu of our own 
days would be content with this unique chamber 
where Louis XIV. came to work, and where Ma- 
dame de Maintenon ate, slept, dressed herself, and 
received the whole court, and which every one en- 
tered as she said, as if into a church. For that 

1 Madame de Maintenon' s bed was in the place now occupied 
by the stucco staircase, built under the reign of Louis-Philippe, 
which continues the marble staircase. The five steps which led 
to the fourth and last room of the apartment (grand cabinet of 
Madame de Maintenon — room No. 143 of the Notice) have been 
removed, the flooring of the latter having been lowered. 

2 Introduction to Curiosites historiques on Louis XIII., Louis 
XIV., and Louis XV., by M. Le Roi. 



MADAME BE MAINTENON'S APARTMENT 135 

matter, the princes, the princesses, even the King 
himself, were not more commodiously lodged. 
Everything had been sacrificed to pomp, brilliancy, 
and display in this magnificent chateau. Louis 
XIV. was perpetually on the stage and playing his 
part as king uninterruptedly, but amidst all these 
paintings, gildings, marbles, and splendors not a 
single one of the conveniences of our days was to be 
had; one froze in these immense rooms, these grand 
galleries, these chambers open on every side." 

Now that we know the apartment of the companion 
of Louis XIV., let us glance at the existence she led 
there. She generally rose between six and seven 
o'clock and went at once to Mass, where she received 
communion three or four times a week. Her day 
was spent in good works, writing, and in visits to 
Saint-Cyr. The King came regularly to see her 
every day between five and six in the evening 
and remained until ten, the hour when he went to 
supper. 

Madame de Maintenon's retinue was very modest. 
The King gave her 48,000 livres annually, plus a 
New Year's gift of 12,000 livres, nearly all of which 
sum was devoted to alms. Her old servant Manon, 
who had been her companion in days of adversity, 
still remained with her, and she had also a few silent 
and respectful domestics. Her existence may be 
described briefly as a life of abnegation, constraint, 
and obedience. Her rank which placed her between 
private persons and queens being indeterminate, it 



136 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

would have been difBcult for her to have lived habit- 
ually amid the etiquette of the court. Hence she 
seldom left her apartment. Voltaire says that her 
elevation, so far as she was concerned, was simply a 
retreat. 

While Madame de Maintenon thus withdraws 
into herself, the court around her is full of commo- 
tion. The marble staircase at the foot of which is 
the apartment of the Dauphin, and which leads to 
those of the Dauphiness, Madame de Maintenon and 
Louis XIV., is incessantly crowded with those men 
" who are masters of their gestures, their eyes, their 
faces, who hide their evil functions, smile at their 
enemies, disguise their passions."^ They ascend 
this staircase to attend the levee and the couchee of 
the King. They pass through the hall of the guards 
(room No. 120 of the Notice du Musee), the King's 
ante-chamber (room No. 121), and then into the 
Chambre des Bassans, where they await the mon- 
arch's rising. 

The Chambre des Bassans^^ so called, says F^li- 
bien, because several pictures by Bassano were hung 
above the doors and the wainscoting, is the waiting- 
room which precedes the bedchamber of Louis XIV. 

1 La Bruyere, La Cour. 

2 Room No. 123 of the Notice du Musee. Under Louis XIV. 
this hall, which at present forms the salon of the OEil-de-Bceuf, 
was divided into two rooms : the first was that of the Bassans, the 
second served as the King's bedchamber until 1691, when he 
installed himself in the succeeding room (No. 124) to remain there 
until his death. 



MADAME BE MAINTENON'S APABTMENT 137 

It lias several different entries: the familiar entry 
for the princes, the grand entry for the great crown 
officials, the first entry for those whose duties entitle 
them to come in, the entry for the officials of the 
King's chamber. The ceremonial is regulated in 
the most precise manner. The two leaves of the 
folding door are never opened except for the Dauphin 
and the princes of the blood. The door opens for 
each person admitted and closes at once behind 
him. 

" One must gently scratch the doors of the cham- 
ber, the ante-chambers, and the cabinets, not rudely 
strike them. Moreover, if one wishes to pass out 
when the doors are closed, it is not permissible to 
open them one's self, but they must be opened by 
the usher. "^ 

Louis XIV. rises at eight o'clock and says his 
prayers. Then he steps out of the balustrade sur- 
rounding his bed and says: "To the council." He 
works with his ministers until half-past twelve. 
Afterwards, escorted by the princes, the princesses, 
the officials, and the great nobles, he goes to Mass, 
crossing the Gallery des Crlaces, where any one may 
see him, present a petition, and even speak to him. 
He passes through the salons of War, Apollo, Mer- 
cury, Mars, Diana, Venus, and Abundance ^ to reach 

1 Etat de France in 1694. 

2 These salons, which form what are called the grand apart- 
ments of the King, are numbered 112, 111, 110, 109, 108, 107, 106, 

in the Notice du Musee. 



138 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

the chapel,^ which rises from the ground floor to the 
second story. The altar and the pulpit, in which 
Bossuet, Bourdaloue, and Massillon preached by 
turns, are below. The upper part is occupied by 
galleries. 

" The nobles form a vast circle at the foot of the 
altar, where they remain standing with their backs 
turned to the priest and the sacred mysteries, and 
their faces raised towards their King, who is seen 
kneeling on a rostrum, and on whom all their minds 
and hearts seem to be fixed. One cannot fail to see 
a kind of subordination in this custom, for the peo- 
ple seem to adore the prince, and the prince to adore 
God. "2 

After Mass the King dines, usually on few dishes, 
and alone in his chamber. At two o'clock he shoots 
in the park, walks in the gardens, or hunts the deer 
either on horseback or in an open carriage. Toward 
five or six o'clock he repairs, as we have said al- 
ready, to Madame de Maintenon's apartment and 

1 This chapel must not be confounded with the existing chapel, 
which was not inaugurated until 1710. The Salon of Hercules 
(No. 106 of the Notice) , which now serves as entrance to the grand 
apartments, was the chapel from 1682 to 1710. That part of the 
palace containing the Salon of Hercules and the vestibule below it, 
unites the north wing to the centre. The chapel, which combined 
the height of the ground floor and that of the first story, was on 
this site. A picture, representing Dangeau receiving investiture as 
grand master of the order of St. Lazarus, reproduces its interior. 
This picture is in room 9 of the Notice du Musee, and is numbered 
164. 

2 La Bruy^re, La Cour. 



MADAME BE MAINTENON'S APARTMENT 139 

there he works again with his ministers during a 
great part of the evening. He leaves her towards 
nine or ten o'clock and then goes either to the play- 
er to the Apartment. 

What is designated by this title is the reunion of 
the whole court in the apartments of the King. The 
Mercure galant of 1682 gives a curious description 
of these soirdes which were established in the first 
year of the definitive installation of Louis XIV. at 
Versailles. "The King," says the Mercure^ "per- 
mits admission to his grand apartment of Versailles 
on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday of each week, 
and all sorts of games to be played there from six 
in the evening until ten, and these days are called 
Apartment days." 

People ascend the great staircase of the King, 
or of the Ambassadors, that magnificent staircase 
decorated by the sculptures of Coysevox, and the 
paintings of Lebrun and Van der Meulen.^ They 
enter the salon of Abundance,^ so-called because 
there are bas-reliefs representing Abundance over 
the marble door. Refreshment tables are laid in this 
salon, which is adorned with pictures by Carracci, 
Guido, and Paul Veronese. Then they pass into the 
salon of Venus, filled with splendid furniture, and 

1 The staircase of the Ambassadors, also called grand staircase 
of the King, was in the north wing, and led to the grand apart- 
ments of Louis XrV. It was destroyed in 1750 in consequence of 
the alterations made in the apartments of Louis XV. 

2 Boom 106 of the Notice clu Miisee. 



140 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

then into that of Diana, where the billiard tables 
are, and where orange trees are blooming in silver 
tubs. The salon of Mars, where one may admire 
six of Titian's portraits, Jesus and the pilgrims to 
Ummaus, by Veronese, The Family of Darius at the 
feet of Alexander^ by Lebrun, is the room where they 
play. In the middle of it, on a table covered with 
green velvet, there is a trou-madame of inlaid wood 
surrounded by hangings of red velvet fringed with 
gold. There are also tables for card-playing and 
for games of chance. The next room is the salon 
of Mercury, where the state bed is, and pictures by 
Carracci, Titian, and Van Dyck. 

Then comes the magnificent salon of Apollo, 
which is the Throne room. At the end of it is a 
platform covered by a Persian carpet with a gold 
ground on which stands a silver throne eight fee* 
high. Four statues of infants carrying flower bas- 
kets support the seat and the back, which are covered 
with red velvet. Domenichino's David, Rubens' 
Tomp'is, and pictures by Guido and Van Dyck 
adorn this salon, which is that where Louis XIV. 
gives audience to foreign ambassadors, and which on 
Apartment days is devoted to music and dancing. 

On those days there is great stir and animation. 
Diamonds and jewels sparkle in the dazzling lustre 
of chandeliers. People are ecstatic over the resplen- 
dent toilettes of the most beautiful women in France. 
A perfume of elegance and aristocracy exhales from 
amidst the lights and flowers. 



MADAME BE MAINTENON'8 APARTMENT 141 

"Some choose one game and some another. Still 
others only desire to watch the playing, or to walk 
about and admire the assembly and the richness of 
these grand ajDartments. Although they are filled, 
one sees none but men and women of high rank. 
People are entirely free to converse there. . . . 
Respect, however, prevents them from raising their 
voices too high, so that the noise one hears is not 
disagreeable. . . . The King lays aside his gran- 
deur in order to play with many of the assembly who 
have never had such an honor. He goes from one 
game to another. He will not allow any one to rise 
nor interrupt the game when he approaches. "^ 

The reunion breaks up at ten o'clock, the hour 
when Louis XIV. takes his supper, usually au grand 
convert^ with the royal family in the room called the 
King's ante-chamber. 2 Here is the nave, a piece of 
jeweller's work in silver gilt shaped like a dismasted 
vessel. In it are kept the King's napkins between 
scented cushions. Everybody who passes in front 
of the nave, even the princesses, must salute it, as 
they do the King's bed when entering the bed- 
chamber. 

Supper ended, Louis XIV. enters his chamber, 
where he receives his private family, his brother, 
and his children, with their husbands or wives. He 
chats until the couchee, which takes place toward 



1 Mercure galant. December, 1682. 

2 Koom 121 of the Notice du Musee. 



142 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

midnight, or one o'clock at latest. The greatest 
nobles strive for the honor of holding the candlestick 
while the sovereign undresses. As Saint-Simon 
remarks, it is a distinction, a favor which is counted 
on, so skilful is Louis XIV. in making something 
out of nothing. 

The task of the courtiers is ended for to-day. 
The lights are extinguished. All subsides into 
darkness and silence. At last it is the hour for 
repose. But one sleeps little or sleeps badly in 
this region which La Bruy^re speaks of, " which is 
some forty-eight degrees of elevation from the pole 
and more than eleven hundred leagues by sea from 
the Iroquois and the Hurons." Here the "joys are 
visible but false, and vexations hidden but real." 
The night's slumber is disturbed by reminiscences of 
yesterday, and by anxieties for to-morrow, and one 
forgets neither his ambitions nor his cares, because 
whether sleeping or waking one thinks of nothing 
but his own interests. 



IX 

THE MAEQUISE DE CAYLTJS 

AMIDST the court of Versailles, now grown 
old and saddened, one sees here and there 
young, smiling, luminous faces, fresh and lively 
countenances which brighten up the palace, eyes 
that sparkle, gracious, intelligent, and sympathetic 
smiles, sweet and persuasive voices, enchanting 
women whose charm sheds somewhat of light and 
poesy over ceremonial gravities and the weariness 
of etiquette. 

Louis XIV. loved youth. As to Madame de 
Maintenon, who had never had any children and who 
had, nevertheless, the qualities necessary to make 
her a good mother, she made herself amends for the 
cruelty of fate by watching with maternal solicitude 
over the children whom she cherished. It was thus 
she educated her niece a la mode de Bretagne^ the 
pretty and graceful Mademoiselle de Mur9ay-Vil- 
lette, a typical French woman, gay, satirical, even a 
trifle caustic, animated, amusing, captivating and 
captivated. 

She merits special mention in the galaxy of Ver- 
143 



144 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

sailles, this little magician who handled the pen as 
well as she did the fan, this clever woman who has 
had the honor of being cited by Sainte-Beuve as the 
model of those exquisite qualities which are summed 
up in the word urbanity, this enchantress to whom 
Madame de Maintenon said : " You know very well 
how to dispense with pleasures, but pleasures cannot 
dispense with you." 

Marguerite de Murgay-Villette, Marquise de Cay- 
lus, was born in Poitou, in the year 1673. Benja- 
min de Valois, Marquis de Villette, had espoused 
Arthemise d'Aubigne, daughter of the famous Theo- 
dore Agrippa d'Aubign^, the soldier-poet, the au- 
stere and imperious Calvinist, the haughty and 
satirical companion of Henry IV., Theodore Agrippa 
d'Aubigne, whose son was the father of Madame 
de Maintenon. The little de Murgay-Villette was 
seven years old, and her father, who was in the navy, 
was on duty when her aunt d la mode de Bretagne, 
Madame de Maintenon, resolved to convert her to 
Catholicism. 

This was the moment when Louis XIV. was con- 
verting the Huguenots of his realm with their will 
or against it. The child was taken away from her 
family and conveyed to Saint-Germain. 

"At first I cried a good deal," she says in her 
Soiive7ii7's, "but the next day I found the King's 
Mass so beautiful that I consented to become a 
Catholic on condition that I should hear it every 
day and that no one should whip me. That is all 



THE MABQUISE BE CAYLUS 145 

the controversy that was employed and the only 
abjuration that I made." 

M. de Murgay-Villette was indignant at first, but 
he ended by growing milder and embracing the 
Catholic religion himself. As the King was con- 
gratulating him, he responded: "This is the only 
occasion in my life when it has not been my object 
to please Your Majesty." 

Madame de Maintenon, who had the vocation and 
the aptitudes of a teacher, took pleasure in occupy- 
ing herself with her niece. 

"I was brought up," says the latter, "with a care 
for which Madame de Maintenon cannot be too much 
praised. Nothing happened at court without her 
causing me to make such reflections on it as I was 
capable of, approving me when I thought justly, and 
correcting me when I thought badly. My days 
were spent among masters, reading, and honest and 
well-regulated amusements; my memory was culti- 
vated by obliging me to learn verses by heart, and 
as I was under the necessity of giving an account of 
my reading or of any sermon I heard, I was forced 
to pay attention. In addition to this I had to write 
a letter every day either to a member of my family 
or some other person whom I might choose, and this 
I had to take to Madame de Maintenon every even- 
ing that she might either approve or correct it, 
according as it was well or ill done." 

At the age of thirteen Mademoiselle de Villette 
was already charming, and her hand was asked for 



146 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

by the greatest nobles, M. de Roquelaure and M. 
de Boufflers. Madame de Maintenon thought she 
ought not to accept such brilliant offers for her 
niece. 

"My niece is not a sufficiently good match for 
you," she said to M. de Boufflers. "Still, I am not 
insensible to the honor you pay me. I will not give 
her to you, but in future I shall consider you as my 
nephew." 

The woman who used this language often dis- 
played what may be called an ostentatious modesty. 
She rather gloried in making a commonplace mar- 
riage for her charming niece, and selected for her a 
husband devoid of merit, fortune, or command, M. 
de Tubi^res, Marquis de Caylus. The young wife 
was onl}^ thirteen years old. The King gave her 
only a moderate allowance and a collar of pearls 
worth ten thousand ecus. 

But shortly after her marriage she had an apart- 
ment at Versailles, where her beauty did not fail 
to excite enthusiasm. Saint-Simon, who did not 
admire too readil}', exclaims concerning her : " Never 
was there a visage so intelligent, so affecting, never 
such grace and wit, never such gaiety and amuse- 
ment, never was a creature more attractive." 

The eulogies of the Abb^ de Choisy are not less 
expressive: "Mirth and laughter beamed around 
her ; her mind was still more amiable than her vis- 
age ; . . . and if her natural gaiety had permitted 
her to retrench certain little airs rather too coquet- 



THE MARQUISE DE CATLUS 147 

tish, which all her innocence could not justify, she 
would have been a perfect person." 

Madame de Caylus was one of the heroines of 
those representations of Esther which continue to 
be one of the most pleasing episodes of the second 
half of the great reign. 

In 1685 Madame de Maintenon had founded at 
Saint-Cyr, quite close to Versailles, a house for the 
gratuitous education of one hundred and fifty noble 
but poor young girls. Religion and literature were 
both in high esteem there. Some of the pupils of 
the senior class — the blues — had declaimed Cinna, 
Andromaque, and IphigSnie, in presence of their 
companions. But it was soon perceived that they 
were but too well inclined to the business, especially 
for the recitation of the love scenes. Madame de 
Maintenon wrote to Racine: "Our little ones have 
just been playing your Andromaque, and have played 
it so well that they shall never play it again, nor 
any other of your pieces." 

But though tragedy was proscribed, poetry was 
by no means forsaken. Madame de Maintenon, who 
admired Racine greatly, begged him to compose a 
sort of moral and historical poem for Saint-Cyr from 
which human love should be rigorously excluded. 
This was in 1688. Racine was nearly fifty, and had 
renounced the theatre twelve years before, being 
then in the plenitude of genius and inspiration. 
Religious scruples had driven him from the stage, 
and he had offered to God the most painful sacrifice 



148 THE JVOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

possible to an artist: that of his renown. This 
great poet had condemned himself to silence, and 
with his own hands taken the coursers from the 
triumphal chariot which drew him through the 
starry spheres of art. He trembled with joy when 
he saw a means of reconciling his former inclina- 
tions with the sentiments which had turned him 
away from them. The poet and the devotee were 
at last to come to terms. Esther was the fruit of 
their alliance, that exquisite work which is akin 
both to tragedy and elegy, that poem full of tender- 
ness and tears which is worthy of the poet of whom 
his son said: "My father was a man all senti- 
ment, all feeling." Aroused as it were from a long 
slumber, Racine had drawn from this repose a fresh- 
ness of impressions, a new originality. " At fifteen 
years old," says M. Michelet, "Madame de Caylus 
saw the birth of Esther, inhaled its first perfume, 
and understood its spirit so well that she seemed, by 
the emotion of her voice, to add somewhat to it." 

It was not originally intended that she should 
play any part in it. But one day Avhen Racine was 
about to read several of the scenes to Madame de 
Main tenon, she began to declaim them in so moving 
a style that the enthusiastic poet composed a pro- 
logue, that of Piety^ expressly for her. 

The first representation was given at Saint-Cyr, 
January 26, 1689. The vestibule of the dormitories, 
situated on the second floor of the pupils' great stair- 
case, was divided into two parts, one for the stage, 



THE MAEQUISE BE CAYLUS 149 

and tlie other for the spectators. Tvv^o amphitheatres 
had been erected at the side of the room, a small one 
for the ladies of the community, and a larger one for 
the pupils. The smallest children, the reds, were 
on the highest row of seats, then came the greens, 
the yellows, and at the bottom of all the oldest girls, 
the blues, all wearing ribbons of their class colors. 
The play was given in the daytime, but all the win- 
dows had been closed, and the stairways, passages, 
and the hall itself glittered with lights in crystal 
chandeliers. Between the two amphitheatres were 
seats for the King, Madame de Maintenon, and 
several spectators admitted as an exceptional favor 
to the honor of applauding Esther. 

Louis XIV. arrived at three o'clock in the after- 
noon, and the piece began a few minutes later. 
Madame de Caylus recited her prologue in an affect- 
ing and melodious voice which excited a buzz of 
enthusiastic emotion in the noble audience. Her 
seventeen years, her pure tones, her tender and ideal 
beauty, made her seem like an angel. From the first 
lines of the prologue success was assured. Louis 
XIV. felt himself rejuvenated. Here at last was a 
diversion worthy of the great King. How easily 
one pictures to himself this half-pious, half-profane 
animation; these naive and charming young girls 
who say a Yeni Creator before they go on the stage ; 
these improvised actresses who are electrified by the 
music, the poetry, the footlights, and, still more 
than all these, by the presence of him who is their 



150 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

protector, their earthly Providence! The greatest 
of kings in the house ; the greatest of poets in the 
greenroom; actresses who vie with each other in 
tenderness and grace ; verses altogether noble, ideal, 
and harmonious; choirs whose celestial melody is 
the hymn of prayer, the canticle of divine love; a 
splendid Mise en scene ; admirable decorations ; Per- 
sian costumes glittering with the crown jewels, and, 
still more alluring than even the prestige of the 
throne and the beams of the royal sun, the charm of 
youth, the freshness of imaginations, the sweet and 
penetrating poetry of the souls of young girls, — 
what a spectacle, what an intoxication! Esther is 
played by Mademoiselle de Veilhan, Elise by Made- 
moiselle de Maisonfort, Assuerus by Mademoiselle 
Lastic, J.mfljw by Mademoiselle d'Abancourt, Zares by 
Mademoiselle de Marsilly, Hydaspe by Mademoiselle 
de Mornay. The rOle of MardocliSe is played to 
perfection by Mademoiselle de Glapion, that young 
person who caused Racine to say: "I have found a 
MardocJiSe whose voice goes to one's very heart." 

The poet is behind the scenes acting as stage man- 
ager. Mademoiselle de Maisonfort, who is fright- 
ened, has had a momentary failure of memory. 
When she returns to the greenroom, he says to her: 
"Ah! Mademoiselle, here is a piece spoiled." The 
beautiful young girl at once begins to cry ; Racine 
consoles her and pulling out his handkerchief wipes 
her eyes, as one would do for an infant. She returns 
to the stage and plays like a finished actress. Her 



THE MARQUISE BE CAYLUS 151 

eyes are somewhat red still, and Louis XIV., whom 
nothing escapes, whispers : " The little canoness has 
been crying." 

Madame de Maintenon can hardly conceal her joy 
at the success of her dear children. Louis XIV., 
touched and enraptured, grants his approbation, the 
most precious of rewards, to the poet and the ac- 
tresses, and when the representation is ended, Racine, 
"who loves God as he formerly loved his mis- 
tresses,"^ hastens to the chapel and falls on his 
knees in a transport of gratitude. 

The succeeding representations are still more 
brilliant than the first. Madame de Caylus takes 
the part of Esther and surpasses herself in it. A 
childish divertisement, as Racine said himself, at- 
tracts the eager attention of the whole court. The 
favor of an invitation is more desired and more dif- 
ficult to obtain than that of a journey to Marly. 
Louis XIV. enters first, and stands at the threshold, 
cane in hand, until all the guests are in the hall. 
Madame de Sdvign^, who is admitted to the repre- 
sentation of February 19, 1689, cannot contain her 
joy. She sits next to Marshal de Bellefonds, to 
whom she communicates her enthusiastic impres- 
sions in an undertone. The marshal rises between 
the acts and goes to tell the King how pleased he is. 
"I am near a lady," he adds, "who is very worthy 
of having seen Esther.'''' 

1 Madame de SSvigng, Letter of February 7, 1689. 



152 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

At the close of the performance Louis XIV. 
addresses a few words to several of the spectators. 
He stops in front of Madame de S^vign^ and speaks 
kindly to her. 

The Marquise, quite proud of such an honor, has 
mentioned this conversation in one of her letters : 
"The King said to me, 'Madame, I am sure you 
have been pleased. Racine has a great deal of 
genius.' Without showing surprise I answer, ' Sire, 
he has a great deal; but, truly, these young people 
have a great deal also ; they enter into the subject 
as if they had never done anything else.' ' Ah ! as 
for that, it is true.' — And then His Majesty moved 
away, leaving me the object of envy." 

Is not that last word characteristic? ThQ most 
superior woman in the kingdom is beside herself 
with joy because the King has spoken with her. 
What a prestige had this incomparable monarch, 
the least mark of attention from whom made the 
whole court envious ! 

The success of Esther had been too great. Criti- 
cism, motived either by piety or jealousy, soon began 
to attack these representations which had been so 
brilliant. The genius of the poet and the talent of 
the actresses had to be recognized of course, whether 
willingly or unwillingly. The criticism was aimed 
at other points. It was said that this blending of 
the cloister and the theatre was not a good thing, 
that the self-love, and perhaps even the coquettish 
instincts of the young girls, would be over-excited 



THE MARQUISE BE CAYLUS 153 

by such divertisements. Bourdaloue and Bossuet 
had been present at the representations as if to mark 
their approval in that manner. But Madame de 
Maintenon's new director, Godez-Desmaretz, Bishop 
of Chartres, decided against these ostentatious exhi- 
bitions of the pupils of Saint-Cyr. Hence they were 
put an end to, and Athalie, which had been called 
for after the success of Usther, and already learned 
by the young ladies of Saint-Cyr, was given, in 1690, 
without display, without scenes, decorations, or cos- 
tumes, in the blue class-room, with only the King, 
Madame de Maintenon, and some dozen others as 
spectators. 

The representations of Esther were not all that 
was considered too worldly. The young woman 
who had been so much admired in it, Madame de 
Caylus, did not remain long in favor at court. Her 
wit and gaiety, the freedom of her manners and 
speech, were too excessive not to entail disgrace. 
This witty and charming Marquise, who was not 
yet twenty, was devout at her prayers. Like the 
majority of exceptionally intelligent women, like 
the Longuevilles, the Montespans, the S^vign^s, she 
was divided between God and the world. But, un- 
fortunately, the world got much the larger share. 
With Madame de Caylus pleasures took precedence 
over prayers. Her mobile, caustic, somewhat super- 
ficial character did not incline to the austerities 
of a profound devotion. 

There was the styff for a great aotress in her 



154 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

rather than a vocation to religion, and when she 
saw the court assuming the manners of the cloister 
she found herself a trifle out of place. Married to 
a man of no merit, who was always with his regi- 
ment, on campaigns or at the frontier, she easily- 
consoled herself for his absence, and contracted a 
liaison with the Duke de Villeroy, which made a 
scandal. Fond of gossip, if not of calumny, not 
afraid to provoke enmity for the sake of a witty 
speech, accustomed to the society and the mischiev- 
ous pranks of the Duchess de Bourbon, who, with 
less wit, had all the satiric tendencies of her mother, 
Madame de Montespan, Madame de Caylus was 
inclined to scoff at everything. That was a sort 
of pastime which Louis XIV. knew not how to 
pardon. This audacious young person had been 
imprudent enough to say, in speaking of the court : 
" This place is so dull that it is like an exile to live 
here." 

The King took her at her word, and forbade her 
to appear again in the place she found so tiresome. 
She seemed to him affected and coquettish. He 
thought her too keen, too acute, too ready to use 
that weapon of ridicule which is so deadly when 
wielded by the little hand of a pretty woman. He 
was even of the opinion that this futile education 
did not greatly redound to the credit of Madame 
de Maintenon, who on her part had no interest in 
keeping near the King a young woman who might 
injure Saint-Cyr. Hence the disgrace of Madame 



THE MARQUISE BE CATLUS 155 

de Caylus was of long duration. She remained away 
from tlie court for thirteen years as a sort of pen- 
ance, and only obtained forgiveness through good 
behavior, submission, and piety. But the pardon 
was complete. 

She reappeared at Versailles, February 10, 1707, 
at the King's supper, and received a cordial welcome. 
She was only thirty-three, had been a widow for 
about two years, and did not intend to marry again. 
Beautiful as an angel and more charming than ever, 
she entirely regained the favor of Madame de Main- 
tenon, whose assiduous companion she became, and 
remained at the palace until the death of Louis XIV. 
After that she returned to Paris, where she occupied 
a small house contiguous to the Luxembourg gardens. 
There she gave suppers to great nobles and men of 
learning, and her salon was an intellectual centre, 
where the traditions of the seventeenth century were 
perpetuated into the first years of the eighteenth. 
There she died in 1729, aged only fifty-six. 

Some months earlier she had written, under the 
modest title of /Souvenirs, the brief and witty memoirs 
which will make her name immortal. Her friends, 
enchanted by her lively wit, had long entreated her 
to write out, not for the public, but for them, the 
anecdotes which she related so well. In the end she 
acquiesced, and committed to paper certain incidents, 
certain portraits. What a treasure are these Souve- 
nirs, so fluently written, so unpretentious, with neither 
dates nor chronological order, but upon which all his- 



156 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

torians have drawn for more than a century ! ^ How 
much is contained in this little book, which teaches 
more in a few lines than interminable works in many 
volumes! How feminine it is, and how French! 
One readily understands Voltaire's liking for these 
charming Souvenirs. Who ever applied better than 
Madame de Caylus the famous precept : " Go lightly, 
mortals ; don't bear on too hard " ? 

She belonged to that race of spontaneous writers 
who produce artistic works without knowing it, just 
as M. Jourdain wrote prose, and who do not even 
suspect that they possess that chief attribute of style : 
naturalness. What pure, what ready, wit! What 
good humor, what unconstraint, what delightful ease ! 
What a charming series of portraits, each more life- 
like, more animated, still better than all the others ! 
These little miniatures due to the brush of a woman 
of the world are better worth studying than many a 
picture or fresco. 

1 The Souvenirs de Madame de Caylus, wliicli were never com- 
pleted, remained in manuscript during her life and long after her 
death. They were first printed at Amsterdam, in 1770, with a 
preface and notes attributed to Voltaire. 



MADAME DE MAINTBNON AND THE GENTLEWOMEN 
OF SAINT-CYR 

THE figure of Madame de Maintenon is framed 
in the house of Saint-Cyr like that of Mademoi- 
selle de La Valli^re in the Carmelite convent of 
rue Saint-Jacques. We see the spouse of Louis XIV. 
in her true light when she is surrounded by the 
nuns and the pupils of an asylum where the idea of 
religion is blended with that of nobility, and which 
makes room for both earth and heaven, for the world 
and for God. Saint-Cyr is the veritable offspring 
of this wife who was not a mother ; it is here that a 
heart far less barren, less egotistic than is believed, 
expends what remains to her of emotional strength 
and tenderness. 

In this pious abode Madame de Maintenon experi- 
ences the charm of compassion, edification, melan- 
choly. From this point she contemplates, through 
the mists of the past, her own eventful and astonish- 
ing career. Here she listens with emotion to the 
remote echo of the stormy floods which beat against 
her cradle, troubled her youth, and which even now 

1§7 



158 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLE8 

often disturb lier age. When she sees so many- 
do werless young girls, she recalls the time when she 
was poor and forsaken in spite of her illustrious 
birth. She reflects on what intelligence, ability, and 
courage the grand-daughter of Theodore Agrippa 
d'Aubign^ needed in order to struggle against pov- 
erty. She remembers the snares laid for her by the 
spirit of evil, the illusions of the girl and the young 
woman, from which her lofty intelligence and good 
sense preserved her ; she summarizes the lessons 
suggested by her experience. In this chapel whose 
silence is undisturbed by the worldly murmur of 
courtiers, more occupied with the King than with 
God, she reflects on all the intrigues, vanities, and 
deceptions of the court. In this calm abode, where 
monastic gravity is softened by the graces of child- 
hood and youth, she reflects on the morning of life 
and its evening, on the cradle and the grave. For 
Madame de Maintenon there is a sort of living 
antithesis between Versailles and Saint-Cyr: Ver- 
sailles is agitation, Saint-Cyr repose. Versailles is 
the world with its torments, follies, and ambitions ; 
Saint-Cyr is the vestibule of heaven. Hence, how 
greatly she prefers her beloved convent to the marble 
court, the apartments of the King, the Gallery of 
Mirrors, the splendors of the finest palace of the 
universe ! 

" Long live Saint-Cyr ! " she exclaims ; " long live 
Saint-Cyr ! In spite of its defects one is better off 
there than in any other place in the world. . . . 



3iAt)AiIE BE MAINTENON 169 

When Saint-Cyr is in question, I am always de- 
lighted." She is quieted and consoled when she 
enters her dear asylum. " When I see the door close 
after me on entering this solitude whence I never 
depart without pain, I am full of joy." And when 
she returns to Versailles, she feels a contraction of the 
heart, a kind of anguish. 

"I experience," she says again, "a sentiment of 
horror at the sight of Versailles ; what is called the 
world is there ; it is its centre ; there all the passions 
are in action : interest, ambition, envy, and pleasure." 

Madame de Maintenon's preference for Saint-Cyr, 
which is her work, her creation, the very symbol of 
her thought, is, moreover, very easily explained. It 
is there, in fact, that her character, with its love of 
domination, her high intelligence, her talent for writ- 
ing and speaking, her aptitude for government, are 
manifested. It must be owned that it is not religion 
alone which makes her prefer the convent to the 
palace. At Versailles she is constrained, incom- 
moded, she obeys ; the rays of the royal sun, though 
paler than they were, have still a prestige and a 
brilliancy which intimidate her. At Saint-Cyr she 
is free, she commands and governs. Like Csesar, 
who said he would prefer to be the chief in a village 
than the second in Rome, Madame de Maintenon 
finds it pleasanter to be the superior of nuns than 
to be the companion of a king. At Versailles she 
possibly regrets the crown and the ermine mantle 
which are lacking to her. She has no need of them 



160 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

at Saint-Cyr, for there her sovereignty is uncontested. 
Her lightest words are accepted as oracles. Her 
letters, read with respectful emotion in presence of 
the whole community, are universally admired. The 
inmates or the pupils to whom they are addressed 
boast of them as titles of glory. Madame de Main te- 
non is almost the queen of France. She is absolutely 
queen of Saint-Cyr. 

The educational house of Saint-Cyr, which was 
opened August 2, 1686, contained two hundred and 
fifty young girls of noble birth who had no fortunes. 
During thirty years this religious establishment was 
Madame de Maintenon's principal occupation. She 
went there every other day at least, arriving some- 
times by six o'clock in the morning, going from class 
to class, combing and dressing the little girls, edify- 
ing and instructing the larger ones, and preferring 
her r61e as teacher to all the amusements and splen- 
dors of Versailles. Nothing that related to Saint- 
Cyr seemed to her troublesome or disagreeable. 
" Our ladies," said she, " are children who will not 
be able for a long while to rule others; I offer 
myself to serve them : I shall have no difficulty in 
being their steward, their woman of business, and 
with all my heart their servant, providing that my 
cares put them in a condition to dispense with me." 

The ladies of Saint Louis, as the inmates of the 
establishment of Saint-Cyr were called, had an hour's 
recreation in the middle of the day, which they 
usually spent around a large table, conversing freely 



MADAME BE MAIN TEN ON 161 

while employed in needlework. Madame de Main- 
tenon loved to come to these recreations. She 
brought her work, and indulged in those familiar 
talks of hers, at once so witty and so edifying, whose 
instructive charm was so well appreciated by the 
community. 

In September, 1686, the King, after recovering from 
an illness, went to visit Saint-Cyr. The ladies chanted 
the Te Beum^ the Domine salvum fao regem, and 
LuUi's hymn : G-rand Bieu, Sauvez le roi, Vengez le 
roi, the air of which has been borrowed from France 
by the English for their Grod save the King. Louis 
XIV. was pleased with these fresh faces, these hearts 
filled with grateful emotion. When he returned to 
his carriage, he said kindly to Madame de Maintenon : 
" I thank you, Madame, for all the pleasure you have 
given me." 

In 1689 he said to the ladies of Saint Louis: "I 
am not eloquent enough to exhort you very well ; 
but I hope that by dint of repeating to you the 
motives of this foundation, I shall convince and per- 
suade you to be always faithful to it. I will spare 
neither my visits nor my words, little calculated as I 
think them to produce this beautiful result." 

"What should give pleasure to Your Majesty," 
replied Madame de Maintenon, " is that most of the 
young persons who will leave here will live and die 
in innocence, and that a number of them will conse- 
crate their whole lives to God." 

" Ah ! " said the King, " if I could only give as 



1G2 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

many such to God as I have torn from Him by my 
bad example ! " 

For Louis XIV. Saint-Cyr was a consolation and 
an expiation, a patriotic and religious work, a homage 
to God and to France. "What pleases me in the 
ladies of Saint-Cyr," said he, " is that they love the 
State although they hate the world : they are good 
sisters and good Frenchwomen." 

In order to gain the blessing of heaven on his 
arms he recommended himself to the angels of Saint- 
Cyr at the beginning of every campaign, thinking 
that their prayers must be powerful in paradise. On 
returning from the siege of Mons, in April, 1691, he 
repaired to the holy asylum where his soul found 
repose from the emotions of politics and war. One 
of the young girls reproached him for having exposed 
himself too much during the siege. " I did nothing 
but what I ought," he returned. — "But the welfare 
of the State," said she, " depends on the preservation 
of your person." — "Places like mine," replied the 
King, "never remain empty: some one else would 
fill it better than I." 

As to Madame de Maintenon, her devotion to 
Saint-Cyr amounted to enthusiasm. " Sanctify your 
house," said she to the ladies of Saint Louis, "and 
through your house the whole kingdom. I would 
give my blood to be able to communicate the educa- 
tion of Saint-Cyr to all religious houses which bring 
up young girls. In comparison with Saint-Cyr every- 
thing else is foreign to me, and my nearest relatives 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 163 

are less dear to me than the least one of the good 
daughters of the community." 

She is like the queen bee. Not content with 
prayer, she labors. Her pen and her needle are alike 
active. While chatting over her embroidery, she 
gives veritable sermons which would not be unwor- 
thy of great preachers. She delineates in excellent 
style, not merely the portraits of nuns, but those of 
mothers of families. " I know some," she says, " who 
are esteemed, respected, and admired by everybody ; 
their husbands are so charmed with them that they 
say with admiration, ' I find everything in my wife. 
She serves me as steward, manager, and governess 
for my children.' " 

Speaking to the novices, she exclaims : " Consider 
that there is no one on earth so happy as a good 
sister, nor any one so unhappy and despicable as 
a bad one. To be silent, to suffer, not to make 
others suffer, to love God with a heart filled with all 
He desires that we should love, to endure the imper- 
fections of others but not our own, to be neither 
pleased nor discouraged with ourselves, to rely on 
nothing but the cross, and to yield nothing to self- 
love under whatever pretext of innocent consolation, 
— that is the kingdom of God which commences here 
below. You will have no happiness save in yielding 
yourselves unreservedly to God and in bearing the 
yoke of religion with a simple courage which will 
make it light and easy." 

These young girls whose hearts are so innocent, 



164 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

whose voices so fresh and pure, these melodious and 
affecting chants, this poetry of prayer, this perfume 
of incense, are all entrancing to Madame de Mainte- 
non. " Pray without ceasing," she says to the ladies 
of Saint Louis. " Pray while you are walking, writ- 
ing, spinning, working. . . . Some time ago I saw 
our demoiselles folding the linen with an activity 
which left them no leisure to think or to feel dull. 
They were silent for a moment, and then they began 
to sing hymns. I admired the innocence of their 
life and your happiness in averting so many sins by 
restraining so great a number of young persons at so 
dangerous an age." 

In growing old, Madame de Maintenon has become 
austere. " Flee from men," she says, " as from your 
mortal enemies. Never be alone with them. Take 
no pleasure in hearing that you are pretty, amiable, 
or have a fine voice. The world is a malignant 
deceiver which seldom means what it says ; and the 
majority of men who say such things as these to girls 
do it, hoping to find some means of ruining them." 

Satiated and disillusioned by earthly vanities, she 
wishes to inspire others with her disgust for human 
grandeurs. She says to the pupils of Saint-Cyr, 
with the accent of conviction: "Princes and prin- 
cesses are seldom contented anywhere, and are tired 
of everything. They never find pleasures, because 
they are always seeking them ; they go from palace 
to palace, to Meudon, to Marly, to Eambouillet, to 
Fontainebleau, with the intention of diverting them- 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 165 

selves. These are admirable places which it would 
enchant you to see ; but they are dull there because 
one grows accustomed to everything, and in the long 
run, the most beautiful things become indifferent, 
and cease to give pleasure. Besides, it is not such 
things as these which can make us happy. Our 
happiness can come only from within." 

When she speaks to these young gentlewomen of 
marriage, it is invariably with a sort of sad repug- 
nance. M. Lavall^e has made a very judicious reflec- 
tion on this subject. " This," he says, " doubtless 
arose from the two extraordinary marriages she had 
made. If at twenty she had married a young man 
whom she loved and by whom she had had children, 
it is probable that she would have thought and 
spoken otherwise." 

As one of the ladies of Saint-Cyr has said, Madame 
de Maintenon's discourses were " lively, simple, natu- 
ral, intelligent, insinuating, and persuasive." She 
analyzed herself with the same impartiality with 
which she judged the qualities and the defects of her 
neighbor. Her talks were like a perpetual examina- 
tion of conscience, a continuous meditation, a demon- 
stration of the inanity and nothingness of human 
grandeurs by a woman who knew them the most 
thoroughly. 

Austere and admirable instructions ! But were all 
the young girls in a condition to understand them ? 
We fancy that more than one of them is only half 
convinced. Perhaps there are some who say that, 



166 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

after all, Madame de Maintenon was not always so 
scornful of the world ; that she loved it well enough 
to prefer Scarron to a convent, and that she, more 
than any other woman, has been flattered by distinc- 
tions and eulogies ; that in her youth she was proud 
enough of her successes in the brilliant salons of the 
h6tel d'Albret or the liQtel de Richelieu. Among 
the gentlewomen of Saint-Cyr there are doubtless, at 
the side of real saints, some young girls of ardent 
imaginations whom the dread of storms does not dis- 
gust with the ocean, and who, in despite of Madame de 
Maintenon's sage counsels, dream of trusting them- 
selves to its waves in a bark decked with festoons 
and flowers. We are seldom impressed by the expe- 
rience of others. It is our own disappointments, our 
own sufferings, that interest us. Madame de Mainte- 
non is well aware of this, and yet it does not deter 
her from her pious exhortations. "Why cannot I 
unveil my heart to all sisters," she cries, "so that 
they might feel the whole worth of their vocation ! 
What would I not give to make them see as fully as 
I do the pleasures by which we seek to shorten the 
dream of life ! " In recapitulating her entire career, 
this chosen woman, whose mind is so observing, so 
practical, and judicious, arrives at conclusions which 
are all on the side of virtue, religion, and God ; and 
the sacred asylum where she has already designated 
her place of burial inspires her with none but sound 
thoughts and salutary reflections. 



XI 

THE DTJCHESS OF OELEANS 

(^The Princess Palatine) 

ONE of the causes whicli made Madame de Main- 
tenon prefer Saint-Cyr to Versailles, was that 
she believed herself to be loved at Saint-Cyr, while 
at Versailles she felt the shafts of malevolence and 
hatred pierce her through an apparent deference and 
obsequious protestations of devotion and respect. 
Certain persons who saw her continually and mani- 
fested the greatest regard for her, detested her cor- 
dially, and her profound knowledge of the human 
heart made her always aware of it. Chief among 
these secret antipathies existing in a latent condition 
against Madame de Maintenon, must be reckoned 
the violent and relentless enmity of the Princess 
Palatine, the second wife of the Duke of Orleans. 

The accusations brought against the wife of Louis 
XIV. by this implacable German woman are so 
exaggerated and unlikely that on the whole they 
redound to the credit of her at whom they were 
aimed. The Amsterdam libels, the Protestant pam- 
phlets, never invented such enormities. They are a 

167 



168 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

torrent of insults, an orgy of hatred, tlie slang of Bil- 
lingsgate in tlie finest palace of the world. They are 
calumnies which stop at nothing. If one were to 
believe the Princess Palatine, " this nasty old thing, 
this wicked devil, this filthy, shrivelled-up old Main- 
tenon" would be a go-between, a procuress, a poisoner, 
a Locusta. 

The woman who gave herself up to such furious 
diatribes in her correspondence is assuredly one of 
the most singular figures in the feminine gallery of 
Versailles. Her physique, her mind, her style, her 
character, all bear a stamp that is unique. Resem- 
bling no one else and contrasting strongly with all 
who surround her, she serves as a kind of set-off to 
the fine and delicate beauties of her time. To our 
mind, no woman has shown herself more fully in her 
letters than the Princess Palatine. She is all there 
with her defects and her qualities, her curious mixture 
of austere morals and cynical language, the haughty 
ways of a great lady and the expressions of a woman 
of the people, her pretended disdain for human 
grandeurs, and her fierce passion for the prerogatives 
of her rank. 

This is the Princess whose portrait has been so 
truthfully painted by Saint-Simon: frank and up- 
right, good and beneficent, grand in all her manners, 
and little to the last degree in all that concerns what 
she thinks her due. A woman of masculine bearing, 
not coquettish, not desirous to please, honest in her 
morals but shameless in her speech, somewhat rigid 



THE DUCHESS OF OBLEANS 169 

and martial in her character and tastes, loving dogs, 
horses, and the chase, hard to herself, her own doctor 
in case she is a trifle indisposed, able to walk two 
full leagues. It is not poetical, sentimental, dreamy- 
Germany which her very original type represents so 
exactly", but Germany under its rustic, almost savage 
aspects, its energy and rudeness, its antiquated preju- 
dices, its amalgam of simplicity and arrogance, of 
credulity and pride. 

The letters of the Princess Palatine lose much of 
their savor when translated into French. It is only 
in German that they have that smack of terror, that 
impulsiveness, that tone now cynical, now burlesque, 
which is their chief merit. Exaggerated and passion- 
ate as they are, they are worth consulting, even after 
the Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon. Doubtless, 
Madame has none of the genius of this French 
Tacitus. But there is more than one analogy in 
their styles and their destinies. They are both of 
them essentially doubtful witnesses, for each was 
biassed and could not judge impartially in cases which 
nearly concerned their spites and prejudices. But 
neither of them even sought to hide his or her par- 
tiality. 

Hence nothing is easier than to find the truth 
which underlies their falsehoods. If she has not the 
genius of Saint-Simon, Madame has his wrath and 
indignation and his hatreds. Like him, she is obliged 
to receive her enemies well, to put continual con- 
straint on herself, to live with the bastards whom she 



170 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

execrates, to salute the morganatic queen wliom she 
has a horror of. She is an honest woman as he is an 
honest man. She loves right, justice, and truth as he 
does. Like him, she writes in secret and consoles 
herself for a perpetual constraint by exaggerating 
the liberty of style. Like him, she wreaks her ven- 
geance by means of pen and ink. It is from her 
curious letters that we shall try to describe her 
character. 

Daughter of the Elector Palatine Charles-Louis 
and of the Princess Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel, the 
second wife of the Duke of Orleans was born at the 
castle of Heidelberg. As a child she preferred guns 
to dolls, and thus displayed already the masculine 
aspects of her character. She was nineteen years 
old when her marriage with the brother of Louis 
XIV. was decided on. 

She set out for France in 1671. Three bishops 
were sent to the frontier to instruct her in the 
Catholic religion, which was henceforth to be her 
own. The three prelates began their work at Metz 
and terminated it on their arrival at Versailles. The 
Princess, who possibly regretted her Protestantism 
somewhat, said she had never found her instructors 
in perfect accord with each other, and that she had 
taken a little of their doctrines from all three. 

The new Duchess of Orleans was the opposite in 
all respects of her over whom Bossuet had preached 
so touching a funeral sermon. The court which had 
admired the very type of elegance and beauty in the 



THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS ITl 

first Madame, found in the second that of rudeness 
and ugliness. The one was as coquettish as the 
other was lacking in the wish to please. The Prin- 
cess Palatine took a sort of delight in exaggerating 
what she thought of her own physique. " I have 
big hanging cheeks and a large face," she wrote ; 
" moreover, my figure is very small, short, and thick ; 
sum total, I am an ugly little creature. If I had not 
a good heart, no one could put up with me anywhere, 
To know whether my eyes display intelligence it 
would be necessary to examine them with a micro- 
scope or with glasses ; otherwise it would be difficult 
to judge. Probably no such villanous hands as 
mine could be found anywhere on earth. The King 
remarked as much to me and made me laugh heartily ; 
for never having been able to flatter myself con- 
scientiously on having anything pretty about me, I 
have adopted the plan of being the first to laugh at 
my ugliness, and it has succeeded very well." 

If the Princess Palatine did not dazzle the court, 
the court on the other hand did not dazzle her. 
Versailles and its splendors left her unmoved. "I 
like better," she wrote, " to see trees and fields than 
the finest palaces ; I like a kitchen garden better than 
gardens adorned with statues and fountains ; a 
streamlet pleases me more than sumptuous cascades ; 
in a word, all that is natural is infinitely more to 
my taste than works of art and magnificence; they 
please only at the first glance, and as soon as one is 
accustonaed to them they create fatigue, and one 



172 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

cares about tliem no longer." What Madame loved 
and regretted was her German Rhine, the hills where 
as a child she had seen the sun rise, and had eaten 
bread and cherries. 

The youthful nobility of France, in spite of its 
elegance, luxury, and animation, had no attraction for 
her. " All the young people in general," said she, 
" are horribly debauched and addicted to every vice, 
not excepting lying and deceit. They consider it a 
shame to pique themselves on being men of honor. 
They do nothing but drink, wallow in debauchery, 
and talk obscenely. You can easily judge from this 
what great pleasure honest people must enjoy here ; 
but I am afraid that if I carry my details concerning 
the court any farther, I shall cause you the same dis- 
gust that I often experience myself, and that this 
disgust may end by becoming a contagious disease." 

Madame's husband was not a consolation to her, 
because, criticising him with legitimate severity, she 
did not profess more than a moderate esteem and 
affection for him. She never forgave him for sur- 
rounding himself with men accused of having 
assassinated his first wife, the beautiful and poetic 
Henrietta of England, and, showing the greatest 
contempt for the Chevalier de Lorraine, she did not 
feel in safety herself. She suffered from the charac- 
ter of her husband, feeble, timid, governed by favor- 
ites, and often misled by them : " annoying and in- 
capable of keeping any secret, suspicious, mistrust- 
ful, sowing discords in his court for the sake of 



THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 173 

confusion to find out something, and often also to 
amaze himself." 

For the Princess Palatine religion was an insuffi- 
cient solace for the annoyances and vexations of 
which she was incessantly the victim. Born in the 
Protestant religion, she did not well comprehend 
the mystic and sacred joys of Catholic worship. 
Although she was not a free thinker, she made occa- 
sional reflections and waggeries which seem to fore- 
bode the philosophers of the following century. She 
remained a good, practical Christian, but she did not 
consider all priests to be in the odor of sanctity. She 
had a horror of mixing religion with politics, and 
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which was ad- 
mired by the clergy, shocked all her sentiments and 
instincts. " I must confess," she wrote, " that when 
I hear the eulogies that are given the great man 
from the pulpit for having persecuted the reformed, 
it always annoys me. I cannot endure to hear 
people praise what is bad." "It is inconceivable," 
she wrote again, "how simple the great man is in 
matters of religion, because he is not so in other 
things. That comes from his never having studied 
religious things, never having read the Bible, and 
honestly believing what is told him on this subject." 

The grandeur of Bossuet's ideas, the majesty of a 
policy derived from the Scriptures, had few attrac- 
tions for Madame. "I cannot endure," wrote she, 
"kings who imagine they please God by praying. 
It was not for that He placed them on the throne. 



174 TEE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

To do good, exercise right and justice, restrain the 
clergy and make them keep to their prayers without 
meddling in other things, — that is what ought to 
be the true devotion of kings. Let a king say his 
prayers morning and night, that is sufficient ; for the 
rest, he ought to think of making his subjects as 
happy as he can.''^ Whatever bore the slightest 
resemblance to religious persecution aroused an ener- 
getic protest in the Princess Palatine. She found 
it deplorable that no one could make Louis XIV. 
understand that "religion was instituted rather to 
preserve union among men than to make them tor- 
ment and persecute each other." " King James," she 
added, " said that our Lord Jesus Christ had certainly 
been seen beating men to drive them from the Tem- 
ple, but He was nowhere found maltreating them to 
make them enter it." ^ 

The theological discussions which occupied so 
much space at court, did not awaken the slightest 
interest in the Princess. On this head she writes: 
"All they tell us about the other world is incom- 
prehensible. It seems to me impossible to compre- 
hend what God does with us, and that we ought 
to confine ourselves to admiring His omnipotence 
without desiring to argue about His goodness and 
justice." The beautiful and touching ceremonies 
of Catholicism, the long sermons, the protracted 
offices, did not greatly please Madame. " I think," 

1 Letter of March 23, 1696. 2 Letter of July 18, 1700, 



THE DUCEE8S OF ORLEANS 175 

she writes, "that Monsieur is a devotee, and that 
he resembles Henry III. in every way. If this is 
the road to heaven, I shall certainly never enter it, 
seeing that I find it impossible to hear a high mass. 
I get through with my devotions very expeditiously, 
for I have a chaplain who hurries through his 
mass in a quarter of an hour, which just suits me." 
In plain chant she detested what she described 
as an eternal naming of the vowels; and, referring 
to it, she said : " Very often, if I dared, I would 
run out of the church, so insupportable is this to 
me. ... I like Doctor Luther for having composed 
some fine hymns, and I am persuaded that it has 
given many people the notion of becoming Luther- 
ans, for those hymns have something gay about 
them." 

Madame, who was very observant, analyzed and 
described the various kinds of piety exhibited by the 
courtiers. " In matters of devotion, I see that every 
one follows his inclination; those who like to babble 
want to pray a good deal; those who are generous 
by nature always give alms; those who are choleric 
and easily annoyed are constantly in transports and 
want to kill everybody ; those, on the other hand, 
who are gay, think they can serve God very well 
by rejoicing in all things and being annoyed by 
nothing. In short, devotion is, for those addicted 
to it, a touchstone which discovers their natural 
inclinations. For my part, I think the worst devo- 
tees are the ambitious ones who simulate devotion 



176 THE WOMEN OF VEBSAILLES 

in order to rule, and who claim to render a great 
service to God by subjecting everything to their 
power. The most supportable are those who, hav- 
ing been very amorous, when they once take God 
for their object, think of nothing but speaking to 
Him affectionately, and leave everybody else at 
peace." ^ 

What shocked Madame was not religion, which 
she respected, but the hypocrites who used it as a 
mask. Her indignation was not directed against the 
faith, but against the rising flood of scepticism, and 
we credit her with sincere grief when she wrote in 
1699 : " The faith is so extinct in this country that 
one hardly finds a single young man who does not 
wish to be an atheist; but what is stranger still is 
that the same individual who turns atheist at Paris 
plays the devotee at court. It is claimed also that 
all the suicides which have been so frequent lately 
are caused by atheism." 

With such an opinion of the courtiers, it is easy to 
understand how badly off the Princess Palatine must 
have found herself among them. German to the end 
of her finger-nails, she suffered when obliged to live 
beside the enemies of her country, and the conflagra- 
tions of the Palatinate seemed to her infernal flames. 
This court which plaj^ed and danced while the pal- 
aces and cabins of Germany were burning, became to 
her an object of horror. The unhappy people who 

1 Letter of July 7, 1695. 



THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 177 

were expelled from their homes, robbed, despoiled, 
maltreated; the ruins of Heidelberg, Manheim, An- 
derdach, Baden, Rastadt, Spire, Worms, were con- 
stantly in her mind. Pursued as by phantoms, she 
was a prey to patriotic despair and anguish, and felt 
herself a prisoner in the splendid palace of Versailles. 
There is something touching in her plaints : " Were 
it to save my life it is impossible for me not to regret 
being, so to say, the pretext for the ruin of my coun- 
try. I cannot look on coolly while they destroy at 
a single blow in that poor Manheim all that cost 
the late Prince Elector, my father, so much toil and 
trouble. Yes, when I think of all that has been ruined 
there, it fills me with such horror that every night as 
soon as I begin to fall asleep I seem to be at Heidel- 
berg or Manheim beholding the ravages that have 
been committed. Then I start up wide awake, and 
it takes me more than two hours to go to sleep again. 
I fancy how it all was in my time and to what con- 
dition it has been reduced to-day ; I consider also in 
what condition I am myself, and I cannot avoid weep- 
ing bitter tears." ^ 

The Princess found few with whom she sympathized 
in this large and brilliant court. She admired neither 
the men, the women, nor the things that figured there. 
Everything displeased and annoyed her. The figure 
of the King, whom she somewhat ironically called 
the great man, was the only one that seemed to her 

1 Letter of March 20, 1689. 



178 TEE WOMEN OF VEB8AILLE8 

majestic, and even on that sun she discovered many- 
spots. Her family afforded her no satisfaction. She 
had the sorriest opinion of her husband, who was 
incessantly occupied with futilities, masquerades, and 
cynical intrigues. One of her letters, written in 
1696, contains this curious passage : " Monsieur says 
openly, and he had not concealed it from either his 
daughter or me, that as he is beginning to grow old 
he has no time to lose, that he will do everything and 
spare nothing to amuse himself up to the last, that 
those who survive him will know how to spend their 
time after their own fashion, but that he loves him- 
self better than me or his children, and that in con- 
sequence he intends, so long as he lives, to attend to 
no one but himself, and he acts as he talks." 

Madame was not more happy in her son, the future 
regent, than in her husband. The judgment she 
passed on this son, who wilfully spoiled the fine 
qualities he had been endowed with by nature, justi- 
fies that of Louis XIV. on this boaster of vices, "/aw- 
faron de vices." "Although his inclinations are in 
reality serious," she writes, "and he does not take 
kindly to debauchery, he yields to it solely to imitate 
others, and that is what annoys me most of all. If 
the pleasure were in his nature, I should not have 
much to say against it; but that he should do vio- 
lence to himself in order to take to vice and talk 
twaddle, while at the same time he hides everything 
that is good in him — this is what I cannot endure 
without pain." 



THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 179 

The Princess Palatine had a horror of illegitimate 
births, and her pride was outraged by the rank occu- 
pied at court by the daughters of Louis XIV. and 
Madame de Montespan, whom she detested, to use 
her own expressions, as being "the bastards of a 
double adultery, the children of the worst and most 
abandoned woman that the earth can bear." Hence, 
when her son consented to marry one of these bas- 
tards, she was so enraged as to give him, in the 
gallery of Versailles, that vigorous and resounding 
slap in the face, which re-echoes so plainly in Saint- 
Simon's Memoirs. She wrote in 1700 : " My son has 
caused me much grief in addition to his marriage. 
. . . What I find worst in his conduct is that I am 
the only one who cannot have his friendship, for with 
that exception he is good to everybody. And yet I 
have only lost his friendship by always advising him 
in his own interest. At present I have taken my 
stand ; I say nothing more to him, and speak to him 
as I would to the first comer of indifferent things ; 
but it is a very painful thing not to be able to open 
one's heart to those one loves." 

Inwardly tormented, exasperated by her husband's 
favorites, saddened as a wife, a mother, and a German, 
Madame cared little for the splendors of Versailles 
and Saint-Cloud, where her existence was a blending 
of luxury and poverty. "Certainly," said she, "I 
would attach great value to grandeur if one could 
have all that should accompany it, plenty of gold, 
for instance, in order to be magnificent, and the 



180 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

power to assist the good and punish the wicked; but 
to have only the name of grandeur without the money, 
to be reduced to the strictest necessaries, to live 
under perpetual constraint without its being possible 
to have any society, this seems to me, in truth, per- 
fectly insipid, and I care nothing whatever about it. 
I should prize more a condition in which one could 
amuse one's self with good friends without the troubles 
of grandeur, and do with one's property whatever one 
pleased." ^ 

How did the Princess Palatine continue to divert 
herself from so many worries and cares ? By hunting 
and writing. The chase, and still more the epistolary 
style, — these were her two passions, her two manias. 
From 1671, the year of her marriage, to 1722, the year 
of her death, she never stopped writing letters to the 
members of her German family. On Mondays she 
wrote to Savoy, on Wednesdays to Modena, Thurs- 
days and Sundays to Hanover. But this rage for 
scribbling was fatal to her notwithstanding. Her 
correspondence, opened at the post-office, was sent to 
Madame de Maintenon, who showed the imprudent 
Princess a letter full of the most outrageous insults. 
" One can fancy," says Saint-Simon, " whether at this 
aspect and this reading Madame did not think of 
dying on the spot. She began to cry, and Madame 
de Maintenon to represent modestly to her the 
enormity of every part of this letter, and in a foreign 

1 Letter of August 21, 1695. 



THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS 181 

country, too. The best excuse for Madame was to 
own up what she could not deny, pardons, repent- 
ances, prayers, promises. . . ." 

Madame de Maintenon coldly enjoyed her triumph 
for some time, letting the Princess choke over her 
words, weep, and try to take her hands. It was a 
terrible humiliation for so arrogant and proud a Ger- 
man. Nothing more is needed to explain the hatred 
of the Princess Palatine for her to whom in her rage 
she applied the old German proverb : " Where the 
devil cannot go himself he sends an old woman." 

Madame quieted down when she became a widow 
in 1701. " No convent," said she the day after Mon- 
sieur died ; " let no one talk to me about a convent ! " 
Happy to remain at court, in spite of the ill things 
she had said about it, she softened towards Madame 
de Maintenon sufficiently to write in 1712 : " Al- 
though the old woman is our most cruel enemy, still 
I wish her a long life, for everything would go ten 
times worse than it does if the King were to die now. 
He has loved this woman so much that he certainly 
would not survive her ; therefore I hope she may live 
for many years." 

Madame ended her days like a good Christian, and 
Massillon, in a beautiful funeral oration, rendered 
due homage to the courage she had displayed in her 
last sufferings. To those who surrounded her death- 
bed she had said with a calmness worthy of Louis 
XIV. : " We shall meet again in heaven." 

To sum up, Madame the Duchess of Orleans is a 



182 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

very strange type, but she demands attention whether 
or no. In her, uprightness and good sense, justice 
and humanity, coexist with great caprices. In her 
letters, amidst a mass of insignificant details, more 
or less inexact, anecdotes, commonplaces, and worldly 
gossip, there are thoughts worthy of a moralist and 
judgments that bear the stamp of wisdom. It is true 
she preached morality in cynical language; but if 
she speaks of debauchery, it is only to stigmatize it 
and depict its shamefulness. She has at least the 
merit of seeing vice as it is, of looking it in the face, 
of detesting it with a warlike, aggressive, irreconcil- 
able hatred, of stigmatizing it in Rabelaisian accents, 
whose triviality renders them more striking than fine 
homilies. For that matter, are not crudities of lan- 
guage and audacities of expression less dangerous 
than certain refinements of half-mystical, half-sen- 
sual poesy which, by confounding the alcove with 
the oratory, envelop voluptuousness in a cloud of 
incense ? 



xn 

MADAME DB MAINTENON AS A POLITICAL WOMAN 

TO write history with the aid of pamphlets, to 
accept as verities all the inventions of malevo- 
lence or hatred, to say with Beaumarchais : " Calum- 
niate, calumniate, some trace of it will always 
remain," to belittle what is great, to misinterpret 
what is noble, to tarnish what is brilliant, — such are 
the tactics of the sworn enemies of our traditions 
and our glories, such is the pleasure of the iconoclasts 
who would like to efface from our annals all gran- 
diose or majestic figures. The revolutionary school 
whose disciples they are has already done much 
harm. It has sapped the foundations of the edifice ; 
it has aided to destroy that respect which is indis- 
pensable to well-organized societies ; it has converted 
books into libels, criticisms into invectives, portraits 
into caricatures ; it has conspired with that essen- 
tially false literature known as the historical novel, 
to travesty persons and things and spread abroad a 
mass of exaggerations and fables which confuse facts 
and ideas and reverse the conceptions of good sense 
and justice. One of the men whom this school holds 

183 



184 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

most in horror is Louis XIV., because he was the 
representative or, better, the living symbol of the 
principle of authority. It is tired of hearing him 
called the Great, like that Athenian who was weary 
of hearing Aristides called the Just. It has fancied 
it would extinguish the royal sun by breathing on it. 
An old potentate kept in leading strings by a bigoted 
and intriguing old woman, — such is the image it 
would delineate, the characteristics it wishes to hand 
down to posterity as those of him who to his last 
hour, his latest breath, remained what he had been 
throughout his life — the very type of royalty, the 
sovereign by excellence. To dishonor Louis XIV. 
in the woman whom he chose among all others as 
the companion of his maturity and his old age, — 
such has been and still is the thing aimed at by 
writers of this school. They have based their judg- 
ments on those of the Duchess of Orleans, the Prin- 
cess Palatine whose portrait we have just essayed to 
trace, and on those of another equally objectionable 
witness, the Duke de Saint-Simon. It ought not to 
be forgotten that this hot-headed duke and peer, who 
often talked like Philinte if he always thought like 
Alceste, was at least frank enough to say of himself : 
" The stoic is a fine and noble chimera. I do not 
pique myself, therefore, on impartiality ; I should do 
so in vain." It irritated him to be of no account in 
a government where many a man of middling abili- 
ties had secured the sovereign's favor. To be con- 
demned to the idle existence of a courtier, to live in 



MADAME BE MAINTENON 185 

ante-chambers, on staircases, in the courts and gar- 
dens of Versailles and other royal residences, vexed 
and displeased his vanity. He laid the blame of this 
on Louis XIV. at first, and afterwards on the woman 
whom he considered as the arbiter of all appoint- 
ments. But it was only in his Memoirs, written 
clandestinely and kept under lock and key, that he 
dared give expression to his wrath. He was all 
respect and docility in presence of the King. After 
bestirring himself a good deal concerning a certain 
collection which had been a subject of litigation be- 
tween the princesses and duchesses, he said humbly 
to the King that to please him he would have passed 
around the plate like a village church- warden. He 
added that Louis XIV. was, " as king and as bene- 
factor of all dukes, despotically master of their dig- 
nities, to abase or to elevate them, to dispose of them 
as a thing belonging to him and absolutely in his 
power." He was not more haughty in the presence 
of her whom he characterizes in his Memoirs as a 
"notorious creole, the begging widow of a crippled 
poet." He even tried to gain her over to the inter- 
ests of his ambition, and to obtain through her means 
a captaincy of guards. Furious at not being called 
to the greatest positions of State, he pleased himself 
with the posthumous revenge of describing Madame 
de Maintenon in the most odious colors. Relying 
on his imagination in default of other proofs, he 
makes of her a sort of ancient courtesan, living by 
debauchery in her youth and by intrigue in riper 



186 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

years. What lie says of lier is a tissue of inaccura- 
cies. He assigns lier birth to America, while it is 
certain that she was born at Niort. He will scarcely 
admit that her father was a gentleman, while his 
nobility is absolutely incontestable. He accuses her 
of having been supported by Villars, father of the 
marshal, by the tliree Villarceaux, and by several 
others, while it is positive that she never received a 
farthing. Obliged to own that on Scarron's death 
she was "reduced to the charity of her parish of 
Saint-Eustache," he does not perceive that such an 
assertion concerning a woman whose beauty was 
celebrated throughout Paris proves in an undeniable 
fashion the virtue of that woman. He reproaches 
her with having been led astray by the counsels 
of Ninon de Lenclos, whereas Ninon herself says: 
" Madame de Maintenon was virtuous in her youth 
through weak-mindedness. I wanted to cure her of 
it, but she feared God too much." 

Every day increases the fame of Saint-Simon con- 
sidered as a writer. One must admire a style which 
recalls by turns the boldness of Bossuet, the brill- 
iancy of La Bruyere, and the ease and freedom of 
Madame de S^vign^. But, on the other hand, the 
more one studies the court of Louis XIV., the more 
fully one recognizes that the famous memoirs are 
full of inaccuracies. In his remarkable critical study 
of Saint-Simon's work, the learned M. Ch^rueP 

1 Saint-Simon considere comme historien de Louis XIV. by M. 
Chgruel. 



MADAME DE MAINTENON 187 

has already refuted in an invincible manner a great 
number of his errors, and M. Souli^, curator of the 
Museum of Versailles, is constantly discovering new 
ones in the course of his patient and indefatiga- 
ble researches. M. Ch^ruel has abundant reason to 
say : " Saint-Simon's observation is subtle, sagacious, 
penetrating when it is a question of sounding the 
recesses of the hearts of courtiers; but it lacks 
breadth and grandeur. The court bounds his hori- 
zon. All that lies beyond it is vague and indetermi- 
nate for him. While granting him the perspicacity 
of an observer one must deny him the impartiality 
of a judge." To listen to him, Madame de Mainte- 
non is the sole mistress of France, the omnipotent 
sultana, the pantocrate, as the Princess Palatine calls 
her in her curious jargon. He describes with many 
details " her incredible success, the entire confidence, 
the rare dependence, the almightiness, the almost 
universal public adoration, the ministers, the gen- 
erals of the army, the royal family at her feet, every 
boon and every advantage through her, everything 
rejected without her; men, affairs, things, appoint- 
ments, justice, favors, religion, everything without 
exception in her hands, and the King and the State 
her victims." Needless to say that the revolutionary 
school has accepted this exaggerated assertion liter- 
ally. To believe it, Louis XIV. is nothing but a 
manikin of which Madame de Maintenon pulls the 
strings, a sort of crowned G^ronte who lets himself 
be tricked like a child by a Jesuit and an old woman. 



188 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

It is thus they seek to tarnish the aureole with which 
posterity has surrounded the most majestic of all 
instances of old age. 

Let them say what they will, Louis XIV. always 
remained master, and it was he who traced the great 
political lines of his reign. Madame de Maintenon 
may have advised him, but it was he who gave the 
final decision. We say willingly, with M. Emile 
Chasles : " This intelligent woman, far from being 
too much listened to, was not enough so. There was 
in her a veritable love for the public welfare, a true 
sorrow in the midst of our misfortunes. To-day it 
is necessary to retrench much from the grandeur of 
her power and add a great deal to that of her soul." 

It is well worthy of remark that the woman who 
is now accused of a mischievous meddling in every- 
thing, was reproached by the most eminent men of 
her time of standing too much aside. Fenelon wrote 
to her : " They say you take too little part in affairs. 
Your mind is more capable of it than you think. 
You are perhaps a little too distrustful of yourself, 
or rather you are too much afraid to enter into dis- 
cussions contrary to the inclination you have for a 
tranquil and meditative life." That Madame de 
Maintenon may have influenced certain appointments 
does not appear doubtful, but that she alone, of her 
own motion, controlled the ministers, is a pure in- 
vention.* We believe her to have been sincere when 
she wrote to Madame des Ursins : " In whatever way 
matters turn, I conjure you, madame, to regard me as 



MADAME BE MAINTENON 189 

a person incapable of affairs, who heard them talked 
of too late to be skilful in them, and who hates them 
more than she ignores them. . . . My interference 
in them is not desired, and I do not desire to inter- 
fere. They are not concealed from me ; but I know 
nothing consecutively, and am often badly informed." 

Reading or working at her tapestry, while the King 
was working with one or another of his ministers, 
Madame de Maintenon never timidly hazarded a 
word except formally when requested. Her attitude 
toward Louis XIV. was that of respect, humility, 
and modesty. True, the King said to her : " They 
call the popes Your Holiness, and kings Your Maj- 
esty ; you, Madame, should be called Your Solidity." 
But this praise did not turn the head of so prudent 
and reasonable a woman. 

To sum up, what is the chief accusation brought 
against Louis XIV. ? His wars, his passion for lux- 
ury, his religious fanaticism. How can this triple 
accusation weigh upon Madame de Maintenon ? Far 
from urging him to war, she always desired peace 
ardently. " I long after peace," she wrote in 1684 ; 
" I shall never give the King any counsels prejudicial 
to his glory; but if he would believe me, he would 
be less dazzled with this ^clat of victory, and would 
think more seriously of his salvation, but it is not 
my business to govern the State ; I ask God daily to 
inspire and direct the master and make him know 
the truth." Unfavorable to her as he is, M. Michelet 
nevertheless owns that she profoundly regretted the 



190 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

war of the succession in Spain. He says that " the 
only ones who retained good sense, old Maintenon 
and the sickly Beauvilliers saw with terror that they 
were plunging into the frightful enterprise which was 
going to swallow up everything. . . . Just as she 
allowed a written decision for the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes to be extorted from her, so she 
yielded, she submitted for the succession." ^ 

She was no fonder of luxury than of war. Living 
with extreme simplicity herself, she sought to deter 
Louis XIV. from magnificent constructions and 
ostentatious displays of pride. According to Made- 
moiselle d'Aumale, the confidant of her good works, 
she reproached herself on account of her modest 
personal expenses. She never bought a new gown 
until it was absolutely needed, and then said : " I am 
taking that away from the poor. My position has 
many unpleasant sides, but it procures me the pleas- 
ure of giving. And yet as it prevents me from lack- 
ing anything, and as I can never encroach upon my 
necessaries, all my alms are a sort of luxury, good 
and permissible, it is true, but devoid of merit." 

Madame de Maintenon not only counted for noth- 
ing in the luxury of Louis XIV., she not merely 
never ceased recalling him to ideas truly Christian, 
but she incessantly pleaded the cause of the people 
whose wretchedness she pitied while she admired 
their resignation. Never allowing herself to be 

1 Michelet, Louis XIV. et le due de Bourgogne. 



MADAME BE MAINTENON 191 

elated by the incense burned at her feet as well as at 
those of Louis XIV., she had neither those bursts of 
pride, that thirst for riches, nor that eagerness for 
domination which one finds in the lives of nearly all 
favorites. She was indifferent to jewels, rich stuffs, 
and costly furniture. Even in her youth and amidst 
the infatuation excited by her beauty, her mind had 
been her chief adornment, and she had never been 
dazzled by exterior display. No prodigality is con- 
nected with her name. 

The chief complaint formulated against Madame 
de Maintenon by certain historians is the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes. They load her with anath- 
emas as if she alone were responsible for that fatal 
measure. Forgetting that it was during his passion 
for Mademoiselle de Fontanges that Louis XIV. 
began to take rigorous legislative proceedings against 
the Protestants, they attribute the persecution to the 
hypocritical zeal of a narrow devotion inspired by 
Madame de Maintenon alone. On the contrary, the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, which we are very 
far from approving, was, one may say, forced on the 
King by public opinion. As has been remarked by 
M. Th^ophile Lavall^e, those of the reformed church 
preserved toward the government the attitude of 
children in disgrace, and towards the Catholics that 
of disdainful enemies ; they persisted in their isola- 
tion ; they continued their correspondence with their 
friends in England and Holland.^ "France," has 

1 M. Lavallee, Histoire de France. 



192 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

said M. Michelet, "found a Holland in her own 
bosom which was rejoicing at the success of the 
other one." ^ 

To recall the dissidents to unity was the fixed 
idea of Louis XIV. This, as was said at the time, 
would be the meritorious work and proper character- 
istic of his reign. The assembly of the clergy, the 
parliament of Toulouse, the Catholics of the south of 
France, had urgently solicited the revocation. When 
the decree appeared there was an explosion of en- 
thusiasm. Whatever Saint-Simon may say, the court 
of Rome testified an extreme joy. Innocent XI. 
hastened to address a brief to Louis XIV. thanking 
him in the name of the Church. He caused the 
cannon of Castle Saint Angelo to be fired, and held 
a papal chapel at which the Te Deum was chanted. 
The Duke d'Estr^es, French ambassador to the Holy 
See, wrote to the King : " His Holiness said to me 
that what Charlemagne had done was nothing in 
comparison to what has just been accomplished by 
Your Majesty, that there was nothing so great, and 
that no example of a similar action could be found." 
Chancellor Letellier, intoning the canticle of Simeon, 
died saying that he had nothing left to wish for after 
this final act of his long ministry. Bossuet rose to 
lyrical transports : " Delay not to publish this miracle 
of our own days. Pass on the story to future ages. 
Take up your sacred pens, ye who compose the 

iM. Michelet, Freds sur VHistoire moderne. 




MADAME DE MAINTENON. 



MADAME BE MAINTENON 193 

annals of the Churcli. . . . Touched by so man}^ 
marvels, let our hearts dilate over the piety of 
Louis ; lift even to heaven our acclamations, and say 
to this new Constantine, this new Theodosius, this 
new Charlemagne, what the six hundred and thirty 
Fathers said of old in the Councils of Chalcedon : 
' You have consolidated the faith, you have extermi- 
nated the heretics.' " ^ Saint-Simon, who blames the 
revocation with so much eloquence, avows that Louis 
XIV. was convinced of having performed a holy 
action. " The monarch had never thought himself so 
great in the sight of men, nor so far advanced in the 
sight of God in the reparation of the sins and scan- 
dals of his life. He heard nothing but eulogies." 
The laity did not applaud him less than the clergy. 
Madame de S^vign^ wrote, October 8, 1685: "Never 
has any king done nor ever will do so memorable a 
thing." RoUin, La Fontaine, La Bruy^re, displayed 
as much enthusiasm as Fenelon, Massillon and 
Fiddlier. These lines by Madame Deshouli^res 
reflect the general impression : — 

"Ah ! pour sauver ton people et pour venger la foi, 
Ce que tu viens de f aire est au-dessus de rhomme. 

De quelques grand noms qu'on te nomme, 
On t'abaisse ; il n'est plus d'assez grand noms pour toi."^ 

iBossuet, Oraison funebre de Michel Letellier. 

2 Ah ! to save thy people and to avenge the faith, 
What thou has just done is above the power of man. 

By vyhatever great names they name thee, 
Thou art abased ; no name henceforth is great enough for thee. 



194 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Doubtless Madame de Maintenon allowed herself 
to be carried away by the unanimous sentiment of 
the Catholic world. But it was assuredly not she 
who took the initiative. Voltaire recognizes this 
when he says : " One sees by her letters that she did 
not urge the revocation of Nantes, but that she did 
not oppose it." 

In a letter of September 4, 1678, she writes con- 
cerning abjurations which were insincere : " I am 
indignant at such conversions ; the state of those 
who abjure without being truly Catholics is infa- 
mous." We read in the JVotes des Dames de Saint- 
Cyr : Madame de Maintenon, while desiring with 
all her heart the reunion of the Huguenots to the 
Church, would have desired that it might rather be 
by the way of persuasion and gentleness than by 
severity; and she told us that the King, who was 
very zealous, would have liked to see her more eager 
than she seemed, and that he said to her on this 
account : " I fear, Madame, lest the consideration you 
wish shown to the Huguenots may be the result of 
some remaining bias toward your former religion." 

F^nelon himself, who is represented as the apostle 
of tolerance, approved the principle of the revocation 
of the Edict of Nantes. " Though no sovereign," 
said he, "may require interior belief in religious 
matters from his subjects, he may prevent the public 
exercise, or the profession of opinions, or ceremonies, 
which disturb the peace of the commonwealth, by the 
diversity and multiplicity of sects." Such was also 



MADAME BE MAINTENON 195 

the opinion of Madame de Maintenon. But Protes- 
tant "writers themselves have recognized that she 
blamed the employment of force. It is the historian 
of the French refugees in Brandenburg who says : 
" Let us do her justice. She never counselled the 
violent means that were used ; she abhorred persecu- 
tions, and those that were practised were concealed 
from her." 

Madame de Maintenon was essentially moderate, 
both in religion and in politics. Her counsels counted 
for something in the declaration of December 13, 
1698, which, while maintaining the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes, established a toleration which lasted 
until the end of the reign. Let us be on our guard, 
moreover, against sharing the gross error of those 
who behold servitude in Catholicism and liberty in 
Protestantism. Luther recommended the extermina- 
tion of Anabaptists. Calvin executed Michael Ser- 
vetus, Jacques Brunet, and Valentin Gentiles for 
heresy. The inhumanities of Louis XIV. toward 
Protestants did not equal those of William of Orange 
against Catholics. The English laws were of Draco- 
nian severity; any Catholic priest residing in Eng- 
land, who had not after three days embraced the 
Anglican cult, was liable to the penalty of death. 
And nowadays they want to persuade us that in the 
strife between Louis XIV. and William, it was the 
Protestant prince who represented the principle of 
religious toleration ! 

To sum up, whether the revocation of the Edict of 



196 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Nantes or any other act of the great reign is in ques- 
tion, Madame de Maintenon did not play the odious 
part which has been attributed to her by calumny. 
We do not believe she ever outstepped the limits of 
that legitimate influence which a devoted and intelli- 
gent woman usually exercises over her husband. If 
she was often mistaken, at least she was mistaken in 
good faith. The real Madame de Maintenon is not 
the mischievous, malicious, crafty, and vindictive 
bigot imagined by certain writers ; she is a pious and 
reasonable woman, animated by the noblest intentions, 
loving France sincerely, sympathizing deeply with 
the sufferings of the people, detesting war, respecting 
right and justice, austere in her tastes, moderate in 
her opinions, irreproachable in her conduct. 

Speaking of the accord which existed between her 
and the group of truly religious great nobles, M. 
Michelet has said : " Let us regard this little group 
as a convent in the midst of the court, a convent con- 
spiring for the amelioration of the King. In general, 
it is the converted court. What is fine, very fine in 
this party, what constitutes its honorable bond, is the 
edifying reconciliation of mortal enemies. The 
Duchess de B^thune-Charost, daughter of Fouquet, 
the man whom Colbert imprisoned for twenty years, 
became the friend, almost the sister of the three 
daughters of her father's persecutor." Such were 
the sentiments which Madame de Maintenon knew 
how to inspire. Every morning and night she said 
from the depths of her soul this prayer which she had 



MADAME BE MAIN TEN ON 197 

composed : " Lord, grant me to gladden the King, to 
console him, to encourage him, to sadden him also 
when it must be for Thy glory. Cause me to hide 
from him nothing which he ought to know through 
me, and which no one else would have the courage 
to tell him." 

No ; there was nothing hypocritical in such piety, 
and the companion of Louis XIY. was sincere when 
she said to Madame de Glapion : "I should like to 
die before the King ; I would go to God ; I would cast 
myself at the foot of His throne ; I would offer Him 
the desires of a soul that He would have purified ; I 
would pray Him to grant the King greater lights, 
more love for his people, more knowledge of the 
state of the provinces, more aversion for the perfidy 
of the courtiers, more horror of the ways in which 
his authority is abused; and God would hear my 
prayers." 



XIII 

MADAME DE MAINTENON'S LETTEES 

MADAME DE MAINTENON is one of those 
characters who require to be patiently and 
conscientiously studied by an observer who wishes to 
render an impartial judgment. At first, Louis XIV. 
did not like the woman destined to become the most 
serious and lasting affection of his life. " The King 
did not like me," she writes herself, " and long held 
me in aversion ; he was afraid of me as a wit." 

How was it that Louis XIV. passed from repug- 
nance to sympathy, from distrust to confidence, from 
prejudice to admiration ? It was by getting a nearer 
view of moral qualities which at first he saw only 
from a distance. The same thing has happened to a 
majority of the critics who, having to speak of 
Madame de Maintenon, have not been contented with 
superficial views, but have carefully analyzed the life 
and character of this celebrated woman. What has 
occurred to one of her principal defenders, M. Theo- 
phile Lavall^e, affords a proof of the foregoing 
observation. When he brought out his Histoire des 
Franpais, this writer judged Madame de Maintenon 

198 



MADAME DE MAINTENON'S LETTERS 199 

very severely. He accused her "of the most com- 
plete aridity of heart, of a spirit of narrow devotion 
and mean intrigue." He reproached her with hav- 
ing suggested fatal enterprises and wretched appoint- 
ments to Louis XIV. " She belittled him," he says, 
" she forced mediocre and servile people on him, she 
had, in fine, the greatest share in the errors and dis- 
asters of the end of the reign." 

Some years later, M. LavalMe wrote his fine His- 
toire de la maison royale de Saint- Oyr. In this work 
he says : " Madame de Maintenon gave Louis XIV. 
none but salutary and disinterested counsels, useful 
to the State and to the alleviation of the people." 
What had happened between the publication of these 
two books ? The author had studied. Devoting a 
patient research to a work of prevailing interest, he 
had succeeded in collecting the letters and writings 
of Madame de Maintenon. Thanks to communica- 
tions from the Dukes of Noailles, Mouchy, Camba- 
c^r^s, from MM. Feuillet de Conches, Montmerque, 
de Chevry, Honore Bonhomme, he had been able to 
increase the treasures of the archives of Saint-Cyr. 

Madame de Maintenon is one of the historical per- 
sonages who have written most. Her Letters, if she 
had not destroyed a great number of them, would 
almost form a library. The archives of Saint-Cyr 
alone contain forty volumes of them. And yet the 
most curious of the Letters have doubtless not been 
preserved. Always prudent, Madame de Maintenon 
burned her correspondence with Louis XIV., her hus- 



200 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

band; with Madame de Montclievreuil, her most 
intimate friend ; with the Bishop of Chartres, her 
director. The letters of her youth are rare. Nobody- 
yet divined the future which Providence was reserv- 
ing for her. M. Lavallee's collection, necessarily 
incomplete, is nevertheless an historical monument 
of very great value. Two volumes of Letters and 
familiar discourses on the education of girls, two 
others of historical and edifying Letters addressed 
to the ladies of Saint-Cyr, four volumes of general 
correspondence, one of conversations and maxims, 
another of miscellaneous writings, and a final one 
which includes the Souvenirs of Madame de Caylus, 
the Memoirs of the ladies of Saint-Cyr, and those of 
Mademoiselle d'Aumale, form the ensemble of a pub- 
lication that has fully illustrated a figure eminently 
curious to study. 

The collection of Labeaumelle, Voltaire's enemy, 
contains, along with many authentic letters, a great 
quantity of apocryphal ones. There are changes, 
interpolations, additions, and suppressions. Fabri- 
cated bits have been inserted containing clap-trap 
phrases, piquant reflections, maxims in the style of 
the eighteenth century. M. Lavall^e has found the 
means whereby to distinguish the wheat from the 
tares. Passing Labeaumelle's collection through 
the sieve of a sagacious criticism, he has succeeded 
in verifying the text of the true letters and proving 
the apocryphal character of those which are false. 
Like the connoisseurs in autographs, he suspected 



MADAME BE MAINTEN'ON'S LETTERS 201 

the striking letters. Falsifiers are almost always 
imprudent. They force the note; and when they 
set about inventing a document, they want their 
invention to produce a profound impression. 

The correspondence of celebrated persons is gener- 
ally much more simple, far less studied than the pre- 
tended autographs attributed to them. One needs 
to be always on his guard against letters containing 
either finished portraits, profound judgments, or his- 
torical predictions. They are often signs of falsifica- 
tion ; and the more striking they seem, the more 
carefully should their origin be examined. This is 
one of the rules whose strict application would pre- 
vent many mistakes. The majority of historical docu- 
ments resemble certain inheritances. They should 
not be accepted unless on condition of not becoming 
liable to debts in excess of the assets. 

Madame de Maintenon's letters deserve the trouble 
that has been taken to establish their dates and 
authenticity with exactness. Baron Walckenaer, the 
biographer of Madame de S^vign^, assigns to them 
the highest rank without hesitation. "Madame de 
Maintenon," he says, "is a more finished model of 
epistolary style than Madame de S^vign^. The latter 
seldom writes except when she feels the need of con- 
versing with her daughter or other persons whom she 
loves, in order to say everything, to tell the whole 
story. Madame de Maintenon, on the contrary, has 
always a distinct end in view in writing. The 
cleverness, proportion, elegance, and justice of her 



202 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

thoughts, the subtlety of her reflections, enable her to 
attain pleasantly the goal she aims at. Her progress 
is straight and unfaltering, she follows the road with- 
out striking against the bushes, without deviating to 
right or left." ^ 

Such was also the opinion of the first Napoleon. 
He greatly preferred the letters of Madame de Main- 
tenon to those of Madame de Sevign^, which were, 
according to him, "snow eggs, with which one could 
surfeit himself without overloading his stomach." In 
citing Napoleon's preference, M. Desir^ Nisard accepts 
it with some reservations. " When Madame de Main- 
tenon's letters are full of matter," says the eminent 
critic, " one shares the opinion of the great Emperor. 
They possess, to the highest degree, a certain name- 
less quality of discretion, simplicity, efficacity. They 
do not dazzle by means of feminine versatility; and 
the naturalness of them pleases all the more because 
it proceeds rather from the reason which disdains 
mere prettiness without desiring to dispense with 
real graces, than from the wit which plays with noth- 
ings. But when matter is lacking, these letters are 
short, dry, constrained." ^ 

If Madame de Maintenon had had literary pre- 
occupations, if she had imagined that she was writ- 
ing for posterity, she would have produced letters 
still more remarkable. There is neither studied re- 

1 Walckenaer, Memoires sur Madame de Sevigne, sa vie et ses 
e'crits. 

2 M. D6sir6 Nisard, JSistoire de la litterature franqaise. 



MADAME DE MAINTENON'S LETTERS 203 

finement nor pretension in her correspondence. She 
writes to edify, to convert, or to console far more 
than to please. Her notes to the ladies and young 
girls of Saint-Cyr do not outstep this pious limit. 
Often Madame de Maintenon does not take the pen 
herself, but while spinning or knitting she dictates to 
the young girls who act as her secretaries, to Made- 
moiselle de Loubert, Mademoiselle de Saint-Etienne, 
Mademoiselle d'Osmond, or Mademoiselle d'Aumale. 
But in the least of these innumerable notes are 
always found those qualities of style, sobriety, pro- 
portion, conciseness, perfect harmony between the 
thought and its expression, which have been admired 
by the best judges. 

The two women of the seventeenth century whose 
letters are most celebrated, Madame de S^vign^ and 
Madame de Maintenon, felt for each other both sym- 
pathy and esteem : " We take supper every evening 
with Madame Scarron," wrote Madame de S^vign^ 
in 1672; "her disposition is amiable and marvel- 
lously upright." One can fancy what conversation 
might be between these choice women, both so supe- 
rior, so well-instructed, so witty, complementing each 
other by their very diversities. 

Madame de S^vigne, a strong and richly endowed 
nature, a young and beautiful widow, virtuous but 
with a free and dauntless humor, a dazzling C^lim^ne, 
sister to MoliSre as Sainte-Beuve calls her, a woman 
whose character, speech, and writing are alike in- 
tense, justifies what was said to her by her friend 



204 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Madame de La Fayette : " You seem born for pleas- 
ures, and they seem to have been made for you. 
Your presence augments entertainments, and enter- 
tainments augment your beauty when they form 
your surroundings. In a word, joy is the true con- 
dition of your soul, and chagrin is more contrary 
to you than to any one else." Her image, sparkling 
like her wit, appears to us in the midst of those 
fetes which her pen brings to life again like the 
wand of a magician. " What shall I tell you ? mag- 
nificences, illuminations, all France, worn out coats 
and gold brocade ones, jewels, braziers of fire and 
of flowers, heaps of carriages, cries in the streets, 
lighted torches, carriages backing and people run 
over, in fine, a whirl, dissipation, questions without 
answers, compliments without knowing what one 
says, civilities without knowing to whom one is 
speaking, feet tangled in trains." 

Madame de S^vign^, whose letters passed from 
hand to hand in drawing-rooms and chS.teaus, wrote 
for the galleries somewhat. She says herself : " My 
style is so negligent that it needs a naturally worldly 
mind to put up with it." ^ But that does not pre- 
vent her from understanding the worth of it. When 
she lets her pen "trot with the bridle hanging 
loose," when she pleases herself by giving her 
daughter " the top of all the panniers, that is to say, 
the freshness of her wit, her head, her eyes, her pen, 

1 Letter of December 23, 1671. 



MADAME BE MAINTENON'S LETTERS 205 

her inkstand," and " the rest goes as it can," she 
very well knows that society dotes on this style in 
which all the graces and marvels of the great cen- 
tury are reflected as in a looking-glass. Her letters 
are the model of chroniques, to employ an expression 
used in existing journalism. In the nineteenth cen- 
tury, as in the seventeenth, it is a woman who carries 
off the palm for this species of literature which 
demands so much wit. Madame Emile de Girardin 
has been the S^vign^ of our epoch. 

Madame de Maintenon could not or would not 
aspire to this wholly worldly glory. Far from aim- 
ing at effect, she voluntarily diminishes that which 
she produces. Like a true devotee who tones down 
the brilliancy of her glances, she moderates her style 
and tempers her wit. She sacrifices brilliant quali- 
ties to solid ones ; too much imagination, too much 
fervor, alarm her. Saint-Cyr must not resemble the 
hotel d'Albret or the hOtel de Richelieu ; one must 
not speak to nuns as one would to blue-stockings. 

Enjoyment, Gallic animation, good-tempered gaiety, 
fall to the lot of Madame de Sdvign^ ; what marks 
Madame de Maintenon is experience, reason, pro- 
fundity. The one laughs from ear to ear ; the other 
barely smiles. The one has illusions about every- 
thing, admirations which border on naivete, ecstasies 
when in presence of the royal sun ; the other never 
allows herself to be fascinated either by the King or 
the court, by men, women, or things. She has seen 
human grandeurs too close at hand not to understand 



206 TRE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

their nothingness, and her conclusions bear the im- 
print of a profound sadness. Madame de Sdvign^ 
also has attacks of melancholy at times. But the 
cloud passes quickly, and she is again in broad sun- 
shine. Gaiety, frank, communicative, radiant gaiety, 
is the basis of the character of this woman, more 
witty, seductive, amusing, than any other. Madame 
de S^vignd shines by imagination ; Madame de Main- 
tenon by judgment. The one permits herself to be 
dazzled, inebriated; the other always preserves her 
indifference. The one exaggerates the splendors of 
the court; the other sees them as they are. The 
one is more of a woman ; the other, more of a saint. 

To those who still feel an antipathy to Madame de 
Maintenon, we venture to offer a word of counsel: 
it is, to read before judging. The letters of this ca- 
lumniated woman are an autobiography which shows 
us every fold of her heart, and are not less interest- 
ing from the psychological than from the historical 
point of view. More reflection than vivacity, more 
wisdom than passion, more gravity than charm, more 
authority than grace, more solidity than brilliancy, 
— such are the characteristics of a correspondence 
which might justify the expression : The style is the 
woman. 



XIV 

THE OLD AGE OF MADAME DE MONTBSPAN 

IT is through their pride that those are punished 
who have sinned by pride, and haughty natures 
are nearly always those whom Providence condemns 
to cruel humiliations. Of all the favorites of Louis 
XIV., Madame de Montespan had been the most 
arrogant and despotic ; she was also the most humili- 
ated.i Unable to accustom herself to her deposition, 
she remained more than ten years at court, although 
she had become burdensome to the King and to her- 
self. " People said she was like one of those unhappy 
souls who come back to expiate their faults in the 
places where they committed them." ^ There was a 
remnant of irony and wrath in the semi-conversion 
of this haughty Mortemart. Going to see Madame 
de Maintenon one day, she met there the curd and 
the gray sisters of Versailles, who had come to attend 
a charitable meeting. "Do you know, Madame," 

1 Madame de Montespan et Louis XIV., historical study by 
M. Pierre Clement. 1 vol. Didier. 
^ Souvenirs of Madame de Caylus. 
207 



208 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

said she, accosting her, "that your ante-chamber is 
wonderfully adorned for your prayers ? " 

The King continued to see the mother of the legit- 
imated children. Every day, after Mass, he went to 
spend a few minutes with her, but, as it were, from 
duty, not pleasure. In 1686, at Marly, she said to 
him in a moment of exasperation : " I have a favor to 
ask you. Leave to me the care of entertaining the 
people of the second carriage and of diverting the 
ante-chamber." Between Louis XIV. and his former 
mistress there was neither unreserve, confidence, love, 
nor friendship. What remained after their liaison 
was not even a souvenir, not even respect, but only 
remorse. Devoured by ambition and by scruples, 
dragged hither and thither by her passions as if by so 
many wild horses, Madame de Montespan was for 
many long years the prey of that daily, hourly 
struggle which is one of the most painful psycholog- 
ical agonies that can be imagined. 

Massillon, the Racine of the Christian pulpit, the 
moralist preacher, so skilful in sounding the depths 
of the female heart, has described better than any one 
else those fitful repentances which entail all the bit- 
terness of penitence without giving any of its conso- 
lations : " These hearts which the world has always 
occupied, and which wish to consecrate to God the 
remains of a wholly mundane existence, what a 
buckler of brass do they not oppose to grace ? . . . 
They may seek for the kingdom of God and the 
hidden treasure of the Gospel, but it is like the 



OLD AGE OF MADAME DE MONTESPAN 209 

wretched slaves condemned to seek for gold through 
hard rocks in toilsome mines ; ... it seems as if in 
virtue they were playing another's part; although 
they are seeking salvation in good faith, there appears 
in them a nameless constraint and strangeness which 
make one think they are merely pretending." 

Madame de Montespan wanted to leave the court, 
but she had not the courage. She could say to her- 
self, like Saint Augustine in his Confessions : " These 
trifles of trifles, these vanities of vanities, draw me 
by my garment of flesh, and whisper in my ear : ' And 
are you sending us away ? What, after this moment 
shall we be no longer with you? . . . for ever?' 
This interior struggle was but a duel between myself 
and me." 

The progress that goes on between the first symp- 
toms of repentance and the most complete and 
absolute penitence is an interesting one to study. 
The former favorite ended by comprehending the 
truth of Massillon's words: "What comparison is 
there between the frightful remorse of conscience, 
that hidden worm which gnaws us incessantly, that 
sadness of crime which undermines and brings us 
down, that weight of iniquity which overwhelms us, 
that interior sword which pierces us, and the lonely 
sorrow of penitence which worketh salvation? My 
God ! can one complain of Thee when one has known 
the world? And the thorns of the Cross, are they 
not flowers when compared to those that beset the 
paths of iniquity ? " 



210 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

There is an undercurrent of morality in public 
opinion which makes the crowd contemplate with a 
sort of pleasure the decay and ruin of certain for- 
tunes. Madame de Montespan no longer met friendly 
glances in the court which had lately been filled with 
her flatterers. Thus it is that vice nearly always 
finds its chastisement here below. Short as it is, life 
is long enough for the vengeance of God to be accom- 
plished, even on the earth. 

After long clinging to the wrecks of her fortune 
and her beauty, like a shipwrecked sailor to the frag- 
ments of his vessel, she who had formerly been 
called the mistress " thundering and triumphant," at 
last resigned herself to retirement. On March 15, 
1691, she caused Bossuet to inform the King that 
she had chosen her course of action, and would this 
time abandon Versailles forever. Thus the prelate 
who had essayed sixteen years before to wrest her 
from the clasp of guilty passions was the same to 
whom she now had recourse to break the last link of 
the chain. And yet she still had hesitations and 
regrets. A month after this pious resolution, Dan- 
geau wrote: "Madame de Montespan has been at 
Clagny for several days, and has gone back to Paris. 
She says she has not absolutely given up the court, 
that she will see the King sometimes, and that in 
fact they have been somewhat hasty in unfurnishing 
her apartment." But the favorite had been taken at 
her word. Her quarters in the chateau of Versailles 
were thenceforward occupied by the Duke du Maine. 



OLD AGE OF MADAME DE M0NTE8PAN 211 

She was never again to see the theatre of her sorry 
triumphs. For the King her departure was a 
deliverance. 

Madame de Montespan lived by turns at the abbey 
of Fontevrault, where her sister was abbess ; at the 
waters of Bourbon, where she went every summer ; at 
the chateau of Oiron, which she had purchased ; and 
at the convent of St. Joseph, situated in Paris on the 
site now occupied by the Ministry of War. In this 
convent she received the most notable personages of 
the court. The only armchair in her salon was her 
own. " All France went there," says Saint-Simon ; 
" she spoke to each one like a queen, and as to visits, 
she paid none, not even to Monsieur, nor Madame, 
nor the grand Mademoiselle, nor to the h8tel Cond^." 
There was a superbly furnished chamber at the 
chS;teau of Oiron, and though the King never went 
there, it was called the King's chamber. 

From time to time the fallen favorite dreamed still 
of that sceptre of the left hand which she had once 
wielded with such an audacity of pride. She was by 
turns ashamed and proud of being the mother of 
legitimated children. But by slow degrees, serious 
thoughts displaced those of vanity and spite. The 
world was vanquished by heaven. Scandal gave 
way to edification. The penitent arrived not only at 
remorse but at macerations, fasts, and hair-cloths. 
This woman, once so fastidious, so elegant, limited 
herself to the coarsest underlinen, and wore a belt 
and garters studded with iron points. She came at 



212 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

last to give all she had to the poor. For several 
hours a day she busied herself in making coarse 
clothing for them. 

Close by her chateau of Oiron she founded a hos- 
pital of which she was rather the servant than the 
superior. She nursed the sick herself, and dressed 
their sores. As M. Pierre Clement has said so well 
in the fine study he has devoted to her, the scandal 
had been great, the defiance of morality, law, and 
the prescriptions of religion insolent and prolonged; 
but when they proceed from so haughty a nature, 
repentance and humility have redoubled value. By 
her confessor's orders she resigned herself to the act 
which cost her most; she wrote a most humbly 
worded letter to her husband, asking his pardon and 
offering either to return to him if he would deign to 
receive her, or to go to any residence which he might 
choose to assign for her, M. de Montespan did not 
even answer. 

According to Saint-Simon, the former favorite was 
so tormented by the terrors of death in her latest 
years that she hired several women whose only occu- 
pation was to watch with her at night. " She slept 
with her curtains open, plenty of candles in her 
chamber, and her watchers around her, whom, every 
time she woke, she wanted to find chatting, playing 
cards, or eating, so as to be sure they were not 
drowsy." I have difficulty in believing such an 
assertion to be exact. Madame de Montespan was 
too proud for such pusillanimity. Fear did not 



OLD AGE OF MADAME BE MONTESPAN 213 

enter her soul. It is certain that she died with as 
much dignity as courage, even by Saint-Simon's own 
avowal. 

In May, 1707, when she started for the baths of 
Bourbon she was not ill, and yet she had a presenti- 
ment that her end was approaching. Under its 
influence she had paid all the pensions she was in the 
habit of giving for two years in advance, and doubled 
her customary alms. Hardly had she arrived at 
Bourbon when she took to her bed, never again to 
leave it. Face to face with death, she neither defied 
nor feared it. " Father," she said to the Capuchin 
who was assisting her at the last moments, " exhort 
me as an ignorant person, as simply as you can." 
After summoning all her domestics around her, she 
asked pardon for the scandal she had given, and 
thanked God for permitting her to die in a place 
where she was distant from the children of her sin. 

When her soul had departed, her body once so 
beautiful, so flattered, became "the apprenticeship 
of the surgeon of a steward from I don't know 
where, who happened to be at Bourbon, and who 
wanted to open it without knowing how to begin." ^ 
There was a dispute between the priests and canons 
when the coffin was taken to the church, where it 
was to remain until it could be sent to Poitiers and 
placed in a family tomb. The death of a woman 
who for more than thirty years, from 1660 to 1691, 

1 Saint-Simon, Notes sur le Journal de Dangeau. 



214 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

had played so great a part at court, caused no im- 
pression there. Louis XIV. had long considered his 
former mistress as dead to him. Dangeau contented 
himself with writing in his journal: "Saturday, 
May 28, 1707, at Marly : Before the King went out 
hunting it was learned that Madame de Montespan 
died yesterday at Bourbon, at three o'clock in the 
morning. The King, after chasing a stag, prome- 
naded in the gardens until night." 

The Duke du Maine, the Count de Toulouse, and 
the Duchesses of Bourbon and Chartres were for- 
mally prohibited to wear mourning for their mother. 
D'Autin, her only legitimate child, put on black 
garments. But he was too good a courtier to be sad 
when the King was not so. He received his sover- 
eign at Petit-Bourg a few days afterward, and in 
one single night had an alley of chestnut trees, 
which was not to the master's taste, removed. As to 
Madame de Montespan, no one mentioned her name 
again. Such is the world. It is not worth the 
trouble of loving it. 



XV 

THE DAUGHTEES OF LOUIS XIV. 

THE princesses was the title by which the three 
legitimated daughters of Louis XIV., one by 
Mademoiselle de La Valliere and the other two by 
Madame de Montespan, were known at court. The 
first of them, born in 1666, married Prince Louis 
Armand de Conti. The second, born in 1673, 
married the Duke de Bourbon. The third, born in 
1677, married the Duke de Chartres who became 
Duke of Orleans and regent of France. The Prin- 
cess of Conti was more beautiful than Mademoiselle 
de La Valliere. The Duchesses of Bourbon and 
Chartres had the wit and pride of Madame de 
Montespan. The three princesses, who were as 
proud of their birth as if they had been legitimate 
daughters, had a great place in the heart of Louis 
XIV. The court surrounded them with homage; 
and although they did not play an important political 
rSle, yet they must figure in the gallery of the women 
of Versailles. 

The birth of the future Princess of Conti was 
veiled in mystery. Mademoiselle de La Valliere. 

215 



216 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

had concealed her pregnancy. The very night 
before her delivery she made her appearance in the 
royal apartment in presence of the whole court, in a 
splendid "ball dress, and with uncovered head. A 
year later her daughter was legitimated by letters 
patent which are a sign of the times. Concerning 
his favorite, Louis XIV. said, in naming her Duchess : 
" Although her modesty has frequently opposed our 
desire to raise her sooner to a rank proportionate to 
our esteem and her good qualities, yet the affection 
we have for her, and justice, do not permit us to 
defer any longer our acknowledgment of merits so 
well known to us, nor longer to refuse to nature the 
effects of our tenderness for Marie Anne, our natural 
daughter." The child was called Mademoiselle de 
Blois. 

In 1674, the year when the Duchess de La ValliSre 
retired to a Carmelite convent, Madame de S^vignd 
wrote : " Mademoiselle de Blois is a masterpiece ; 
the King and every one else is enchanted with her. 
She is a prodigy of attractiveness and grace. She 
has charmed the court by her beauty from her earli- 
est infancy. People pretend that the Emperor of 
Morocco fell madly in love with her at sight of her 
portrait." She was fifteen years old when, in Jan- 
uary, 1680, she married Louis Armand de Bourbon, 
Prince de Conti, nephew of the great Cond^, who, 
like all his family, testified the most lively joy on 
occasion of this marriage. 

The young married couple seemed delighted with 



THE DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS XIV. 217 

each other. " Their love is like a romance," wrote 
Madame de Sdvign^, "and the King is amused by 
their inclination." The courtiers went to the Car- 
melite convent^ of the rue Saint-Jacques to pay 
their compliments to the former Duchess de La Val- 
liere, now Sister Louise of Mercy, who "perfectly 
conciliated her style and her black veil, her maternal 
tenderness with that of a spouse of Jesus Christ." ^ 
In this mystic asylum where, according to Bossuet's 
expression, one is straitened on all sides so as to 
respire no longer except towards heaven, the pious 
Carmelite, showing herself for the last time, seemed 
the very image of repentance and sanctity. 

Madame de Sdvigne thus describes to her daughter 
the emotion produced by such an angel: "To my 
eyes she still possessed all the charms we saw of old. 
Her eyes and her glances are the same ; austerity, 
poor nourishment, and curtailed sleep have neither 
hollowed nor weakened them. That strange habit 
detracts nothing from her grace or good appearance. 
She said many kind things to me, and spoke of you 
so well and appropriately, all she said being so per- 
fectly suitable to her that I think nothing could be 
better. . . . Truly, that habit and that retreat are 
a great dignity for her." ^ 

1 The Carmelite convent, situated opposite the Val-de-Grace, 
extended from the rue Saint-Jacques to the rue d'Enfer. It had 
two entrances, one on the rue Saint-Jacques and one on the rue 
d'Enfer, the latter still existing at No. 67. 

2 Madame de SfevignS, Letter of December 29, 1679. 
8 Madame de S6vign6, Letter of January 6, 1680. 



218 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 



While the saintly Carmelite was expiating in the 
cloister the birth of the Princess de Conti, the young 
Princess was dazzling the court by her beauty, grace, 
and spirit. Like nearly all remarkably beautiful 
women, she was coquettish. Her husband managed 
her badly. He surrounded her with the most fash- 
ionable young people at the court, which naturally 
gave occasion for scandal. In 1685 she had the 
small-pox, and the Prince de Conti, having shut him- 
self up with her, took the disease and died of it 
suddenly. "What a death was that of the Prince 
de Conti! After having escaped all the infinite 
perils of the war in Hungary, he has just died here 
of a malady which he scarcely had. He is the son of 
a saintly man and a saintly woman, and in conse- 
quence of wrongly directed thoughts, he has played 
the fool and debauchee, and died without confes- 
sion."! 

A widow at twenty and easily consolable, the 
•young Princess continued to be the ornament of 
Versailles. Monseigneur, as the Dauphin was styled, 
was continually in her apartments ; Versailles became 
rejuvenated in this little haunt of pleasure. There 
was nothing but " promenades, rendezvous, love let- 
ters, serenades, and all that was found delightful in 
the good old times." ^ It was there that Monseign- 
eur became acquainted with Mademoiselle Choin, 



1 Madame de Sfivigng, Letter of November 24, 1685. 

2 Madame de S6vign6, Letter to Bussy. ' 



TEE DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS XIV. 219 

who was maid of honor to the Princess. According 
to Madame de Caylus, this young lady's mind was 
not calculated to shine anywhere except in an ante- 
chamber, and was capable of nothing better than 
describing what she had seen. " And yet," she 
adds in her Souvenirs, "this same Mademoiselle 
Choin carried off from the most beautiful princess in 
the world the heart of M. Clermont, at that time an 
officer of the guards. Monseigneur had a particu- 
larly good opinion of him, and had introduced him 
to the Countess de Conti, whom he made such love to 
that he inspired her with a rather lively inclination." 

The King, having been informed of this intrigue 
by means of letters intercepted at the postoffice, sent 
for his daughter, and showed her not only those she 
had written to Clermont, but those which the latter 
had addressed to Mademoiselle Choin. 

" The Princess thought she would die," says Saint- 
Simon. " She threw herself at the King's feet, bathed 
them with her tears, and could hardly articulate. 
There was nothing but sobs, pardons, despairs, rages, 
and entreaties for justice and vengeance ; she was 
speedily heard." Clermont and Mademoiselle Choin 
had to leave the court and resign their appointments. 
But Mademoiselle Choin remained the favorite of 
Monseigneur.^ This happened in 1694. 

The Princess de Conti resumed her accustomed 

1 Mademoiselle Choin presided at Meudon over the little court 
of Monseigneur, who always remained faithful to her. It Is even 
claimed that he secretly married her. 



220 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

dissipations and amusements : pleasure parties, balls, 
hunts, cards, collations at tlie Trianon or the Mena- 
gerie, night promenades in the gardens. Meanwhile, 
Sister Louise of Mercy was redoubling her austeri- 
ties. " Her natural delicacy had suffered infinitely 
from the real severity of her corporal and spiritual 
penitence as well as from that of a very sensitive 
heart which she concealed as well as she could. ... 
She died with every mark of great sanctity in the 
midst of nuns to whom her gentleness and her vir- 
tues had given delight." ^ The Princess de Conti, 
notified too late, only reached the Carmelite convent 
of the rue Saint- Jacques in time to see her mother 
breathe her last.^ At first she seemed very much 
afflicted ; but Saint-Simon says she was quickly con- 
soled. The whole court paid her visits of condolence. 
The children of Madame de Montespan, who had 
lost their mother three years before, were greatly 
mortified by these public visits, seeing that in a par- 
allel case they had not dared to receive any such. 
" They were still more so," adds Saint-Simon, " when 
they saw Madame, the Princess de Conti, contrary to 
all custom, drape her apartment in mourning for a 
simple nun, although she was her mother, — they 
who had none, and who for that reason had not 
dared even to wear the least sign of mourning on 
the death of Madame de Montespan. Between the 

1 Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon. 

2 Mademoiselle de La Vallifere died in June, 1710, after six years 
in the cloister. 



TEE DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS XIV. 221 

situation of the Princess de Conti and that of the 
two other legitimated daughters of Louis XIV. there 
existed this difference : the first was designated in 
her letters of legitimation as the daughter of Made- 
moiselle de La Valli^re, while in those of the other 
two their mother's name was not mentioned. This 
is why Saint-Simon, distinguishing between the 
simple and the double adultery, says that the Prin- 
cess de Conti had a named and recognized mother, 
while the Duchesses of Bourbon and of Chartres had 
not. 

The Duchess of Bourbon, who was at first called 
Mademoiselle de Nantes, had been legitimated in the 
year of her birth by letters patent in which Louis 
XIV. without naming the mother, had contented 
himself by alleging " the tenderness which nature 
gave him for his children, and many other reasons 
which considerably increased these sentiments in 
him." The young Princess was still a little girl 
when she married, in 1685, the Duke de Bourbon, 
grandson of the great Cond^. 

" It was a ridiculous thing," says the Marquis de 
Souches, " to see these two marionettes marry ; for the 
Duke de Bourbon was excessively small. It was 
feared he would remain a dwarf, and they were 
obliged to wait until July before Mademoiselle de 
Nantes would be twelve years old." 

Madame de Caylus says that the great Condd and 
his son neglected no means of testifying their joy, as 
they had omitted nothing to bring about this mar- 



222 TEE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

riage. As she grew up, the Duchess became very 
pretty. Saint-Simon praises "her Jfigure formed by 
the tenderest loves, and her mind made to enjoy 
them to her liking, but without being dominated by 
them." But he represents her at the same time as 
egoistic, deceitful, and satirical. " She was," he says, 
" the siren of the poets, she had all their charms and 
all their perils." She loved pleasure, luxury, and ex- 
travagance. Thanks to Madame de Maintenon, she 
obtained in 1700 the payment of her debts by the King, 
who kept her secret from her father-in-law and her 
husband. If Saint-Simon and Madame de Caylus are 
to be believed, her conduct was not exemplary. She 
may have been the mistress of the second Prince de 
Conti,^ he who had been elected King of Poland in 
1697, after having fought valiantly at Fleurus, Stein- 
kerque, Nerwinde, and in Hungary, but who was 
unable to take possession of his crown. 

" The Prince de Conti," says Madame de Caylus, 
" opened his eyes to the charms of Madame the Duch- 
ess by dint of being told not to look at her; he loved 
her passionately, and if, on her part, she loved any- 
thing, it was certainly him, whatever may have hap- 
pened since. . . . This affair was conducted with 
such admirable prudence that they never gave any 
one any hold over them." According to Saint-Simon, 
the Prince de Conti was "perfectly happy with 

1 Frangois Louis de Bourbon, Prince de Conti. Born in 1664, 
he had married in 1688 the sister of the Duke de Bourbon, graad- 
daughter of the great Condfi, 



THE DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS XIV. 223 

Madame the Duchess, although M. the Duke was 
very singular and strangely jealous." 

The Duke died on Shrove Tuesday in the year 
1709. " Madame the Duchess, though surrounded 
by finery, masquerading habits, and a crowd of 
invited guests, lost none of her presence of mind. 
With her tearful ways she extorted from the King, 
though against his will and tardily enough, an 
income of 30,000 livres. Then her tears dried up, 
and her good humor returned. She received every- 
body in state. She was on her bed, in a widow's 
gown, bordered and lined with ermine." ^ The 
Prince de Conti died almost at the same time as the 
Duke. " Madame the Duchess," says Saint-Simon, 
" was the only one to whom he had not been incon- 
stant. He would have paid her the homage of his 
grandeur, and she would have shone by his lustre. 
What disheartening memories, with no consolation 
but Lass^ junior ! ^ For want of a better she became 
inordinately attached to him, and the attachment has 
lasted for thirty years. . . . She was not made for 
tears. She wanted to forget her troubles, and to do 
so, plunged first into amusements and then into pleas- 
ures, even to the most extreme indelicacies, consid- 
ering her age and condition. She tried to drown 
her vexations in them, and she succeeded." Saint- 

1 Memoirs of Saint-Simon. 

2 Lasse was a brigadier of infantry. According to Saint-Simon 
"he became openly tlae master of Madame the Duchess, and the 
director of her affairs." 



224 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Simon's exaggerations are to be suspected, however ; 
he is always malevolent, and often unjust. 

The suspicions of the ruthless Duke and peer con- 
stantly hover over the private lives of two of the 
daughters of Louis XIV. But he spares the third 
one, at all events, and though he accuses her of an 
almost Satanic pride, he insinuates nothing against 
the purity of her morals. This Princess was at first 
styled Mademoiselle de Blois (the same name as the 
daughter of Mademoiselle de La Valli^re). She was 
fourteen when she was married, in 1692, to the Duke 
de Chartres, son of Monsieur, Duke of Orleans. 
Saint-Simon has described the exasperation of the 
young Prince's mother, furious at seeing her son 
espouse a bastard : " She strode up and down, hand- 
kerchief in hand and weeping unrestrainedly, talking 
rather loud, gesticulating, and reminding one of Ceres 
after the abduction of Proserpine. . . . People gen- 
erally going to await the breaking up the council and 
the King's Mass in the gallery,^ Madame went there ; 
her son approached her, as he did every day, to kiss 
her hand. At that moment Madame gave him so 
resounding a slap that it could be heard several paces 
off, and which, in presence of the whole court, cov- 
ered the poor Prince with confusion, and filled the 
very numerous spectators, of whom I was one, with 
prodigious astonishment." 

1 The Gallery of Mirrors which the Kiug passed through every 
morning on his way to the chapel after having presided at the 
Ministerial Council. 



THE DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS XIV. 225 

Let us note, in passing, that in a letter to tlie 
Rliinegrave Louise, Madame says that a rumor is 
in circulation that she had slapped her son in the 
face, but that it is absolutely false. The marriage 
was celebrated with great pomp. Louis XIV. was 
gratified to find the great lords and ladies rivalling 
each other in magnificence. There was a great ball 
at Versailles where the Duke of Burgundy danced 
for the first time, and it was the King of England 
who gave the bridegroom his shirt. A month later, 
March 19, 1692, the Duke du Maine, the eldest of 
the children of Louis XIV. by Madame de Mont- 
espan, married Mademoiselle de Charolais, daughter 
of the Prince and granddaughter of the great Cond^. 
The legitimated thus found themselves established 
in the court of Versailles which they could not have 
left without sadness, for it was the most brilliant 
and most envied abode in Europe. 

Louis XIV. who had originally said concerning 
the offspring of adultery : " These persons must never 
marry," caused them to make magnificent marriages. 
Curious thing, the Duchess of Chartres naively 
fancied that she had honored the King's nephew by 
marrying him. Madame wrote on this head: "My 
son's wife thinks she did him a great honor in mar- 
rying him. She says he is only the nephew of the 
King, while she is his daughter. This is to forget 
that one is also the son of his mother. Never would 
she comprehend that." Duclos says that people 
jocosely compared her to Minerva who, recognizing 



226 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

no mother, prided herself on being the daughter of 
Jupiter. Haughty as she was, this Princess was 
timidity itself in presence of Louis XIV. "The 
King could make her faint with a single severe look, 
and Madame de Maintenon, too, perhaps; at all 
events she trembled before her, and about the most 
ordinary things, and in public she never replied to 
them without stammering and looking frightened. 
I say replied, for to address the King first was be- 
yond her strength. "1 The Duchess de Chartres was 
none the less a woman of great intelligence, " having 
a natural eloquence, a justness of expression, and a 
fluency and singularity in the choice of terms which 
always surprised one, together with that manner 
peculiar to Madame de Montespan and her sisters 
and which was transmitted to none but those inti- 
mate with her or to those whom she had brought 
up. "2 In spite of all her intelligence, the Duchess 
was unable either to gain the attachment of her hus- 
band or to give a good education to her daughter, 
who married in 1710 the Duke de Berry, third son of 
the grand Dauphin. 

Saint-Simon, whose tongue is always envenomed, 
has ill-treated no woman in his Memoirs so much as 
this poor Duchess de Berry who, a widow at seven- 
teen, died at twenty-four. If one must believe the 
spiteful Duke and peer, she was a bad wife, a bad 



1 Memoirs of the Duke de Saint-Simon. 

2 Idem. 



THE DAUGHTERS OF LOUIS XIV. 227 

daughter, and a bad Christian; she got drunk; she 
mocked at religion; and she wanted La Haye, her 
husband's equerry, to elope with her. "She was a 
prodigy of art, pride, ingratitude, and folly, and also 
of debauchery and stubbornness." The Duchess was 
very wrong, without any doubt; but we incline to 
think that Saint-Simon exaggerates. Possibly she 
was neither better nor worse than many women of 
her time. It is certain, at any rate, that she grieved 
her mother, already much tormented by the rivalries 
and dissensions of the court. 

The three daughters of Louis XIV. were not 
always on good terms with each other. There was 
a time when their quarrels multiplied to such a 
degree that the King threatened, if they continued, 
to intern all three of them in their country houses. 
The menace was effectual, and thenceforward they 
disputed on the sly. Louis XIV. loved his daugh- 
ters greatly in spite of their defects. He was at 
the same time a just king and an affectionate 
father. He showed a real tenderness, a solici- 
tude, and a devotion in his treatment of them which 
never altered. When they were ill he was grieved 
and troubled; he would rise several times in the 
night to go and visit them. Madame de Caylus 
relates that the Duchess of Bourbon having been 
seized with small-pox at Fontainebleau, Louis XIV. 
was absolutely determined to go to see her. The 
Prince (the great Condd) stood at the door to pre- 
vent him from entering. There a great struggle 



228 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

took place between paternal love and the zeal of a 
courtier, a struggle " very glorious for Madame the 
Duchess." Louis XIV. was the stronger and went 
in, in spite of the resistance of the great Condd. 
Thus behaved this King who can only be treated as 
an egotist by those who know him badly or who do 
not know him at all. 



XVI 

THE DUCHESS OF BUEGUNDY 

THE court was all agog because a little girl of 
eleven years had just arrived in France. This 
child was Marie-Adela'ide, the future Duchess of Bur- 
gundy, daughter of Victor Amadeus II., Duke of 
Savoy. On Sunday, November 4, 1696, the town of 
Montargis was en fete. The bells were ringing with 
all their might. Louis XIV., leaving Fontaine- 
bleau in the morning, had come to meet the young 
Princess destined to espouse his grandson, and all 
eyes were bent on the first interview between her 
and the Sun-King. He received her as she was 
alighting from the carriage, and said to Dangeau: 
"Will you allow me to fill your post for to- 
day?" (Dangeau was chevalier of honor to the 
Princess.) 

The newcomer charmed the King from the first 
moment by the distinction of her manners, her native 
prettiness, her little responses full of grace and 
spirit. Louis XIV. embraced her in the carriage; 
she kissed his hand several times while ascending the 
staircase that led to the apartment she was to occupy. 

229 



230 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

When the King returned to his chamber, Dangeau 
took the liberty of asking him whether he were con- 
tented with the Princess. " I am too much so ; I can 
scarcely contain my joy." Then, turning toward 
Monsieur he added: "How I wish that his poor 
mother could be here a few moments to witness the 
joy we are having." He wrote afterwards to Madame 
de Maintenon: "She let me speak first, and after- 
wards she answered me very well, but with a little 
embarrassment that would have pleased you. I led 
her to her chamber through the crowd, letting them 
see her from time to time by bringing the torches 
near her face. She stood this walk and the lights 
with grace and modesty. She has the best grace 
and the most beautiful shape that I ever saw, dressed 
fit to be painted and her hair also, very bright and 
beautiful eyes with admirable black lashes, com- 
plexion very smooth, white and red as one could 
wish, and a great quantity of the finest fair hair 
that one ever saw. . . . She has failed in noth- 
ing, and has conducted herself as you might have 
done." 

Through her mother, Marie-Ad^laide was the 
granddaughter of that beautiful Henrietta of Eng- 
land whose life and death have been immortalized 
by Bossuet in her funeral oration. She was about 
to revive the charm of this greatly regretted princess, 
and her presence at Versailles renewed the joy and 
animation of happier days. She was installed, im- 
mediately on her arrival, in the chamber formerly 



THE DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 231 

occupied by the Queen and afterwards by the Bava- 
rian dauphiness.^ 

The King made her a present of the beautiful 
menagerie of Versailles which is opposite the Tria- 
non palace. Never was a grandfather more tenderlj' 
affectionate towards his granddaughter. He took 
pains to contrive amusements and recreations for her. 
Madame (the Princess Palatine) wrote, November 8, 
1696: "Every one is becoming a child again. The 
Princess d'Harcourt and Madame de Pontchartrain 
played at blindman's buff day before yesterday with 
the Princess and Monsieur the Dauphin ; Monsieur, 
the Princess de Conte, Madame de Ventadour, my 
two other ladies and myself played it yesterday." 

Naturally, Madame de Maintenon was charged 
with finishing the education of the little Princess. 
The first time she took her to Saint-Cyr she had her 
received with great ceremony. The superior com- 
plimented her; the community, in long mantles, 
awaited her at the door of the cloister ; all the pupils 
were ranged in double lines through which she 
passed on her way to the church ; little girls of her 
own age recited a dialogue tinctured with delicate 
praise. The Princess was delighted and asked to 
come again. Afterwards Madame de Maintenon 
took her regularly to Saint-Cyr two or three times a 
week, to spend the entire day and follow the lessons 



1 Eoom No. 116 of the Notice clu Muste de Versailles^ by Eudore 
Soulifi, 



232 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

of the red class. There was no more etiquette. 
Marie-Ad^la'ide wore the same uniform as the pupils, 
and was called Mademoiselle de Lastic. " She was 
good, affable, gracious to everybody, occupying her- 
self with the different affairs of the ladies, and with 
all the works and studies of the pupils ; subjecting 
herself frankly to all the practices of the house, even 
to silence ; running and playing with the reds in the 
long alleys of the garden ; going with them to choir, 
confession, and catechism. At other times she put 
on the habit of the ladies, and did the honors of the 
house to some illustrious visitor, notably the Queen 
of England."! 

Louis XIV., charmed with the Princess, decided 
that she should be married the very day she was 
twelve years old. December 7, 1797, she espoused 
Louis of France, Duke of Burgundy, who was fifteen 
and a half years old. The bridegroom wore a black 
mantle embroidered with gold, and a white doublet 
with diamond buttons; the mantle was lined with 
rose satin. The bride had a robe and under petticoat 
of cloth of silver, bordered with precious stones, and 
she wore the crown diamonds. ^ Cardinal de Coislin 
gave the young couple the nuptial benediction in 
the chapel of Versailles. After Mass there was a 
grand banquet for the royal family in the room known 
as the ante-chamber of the Queen's apartment.^ 

1 Memoires des Dames de Saint- Cyr. 

2 Letter of the Princess Palatine, December 7, 1697. 
8 Room No. 117 of the Notice du Jliis&e. 



THE DUCHESS OF BUBGUNBY 233 

In the evening the court assembled in the Salon of 
Peace ^ to witness the fireworks set off at the end of 
the Swiss lake, and then to take supper served, like 
the banquet, in the ante-chamber of the Queen's apart- 
ment. After supper they passed on into the sleep- 
ing chamber of the Duchess, ^ where there was a bed 
of green velvet embroidered with gold and silver, 
which was blessed by Cardinal de Coislin. A 
moment later, the King sent all the men out of the 
room. The Duke of Burgundy disrobed before the 
ladies, and the Queen of England handed him his 
shirt. As soon as the couple had been put to bed, 
Louis XIV. summoned the ambassador of Savoy and 
showed him that they were lying down. The am- 
bassador immediately sent a gentleman to carry this 
news to Victor Amadeus. 

Nevertheless, this marriage, concluded amidst so 
many splendors, was as yet merely for form's sake, 
seeing that the pair were so extremely youthful. 
The King would not permit his grandson to kiss 
even the tip of the Duchess's finger until they should 
actually come together. Hence the young Duke 
arose again at the end of fifteen minutes, dressed 
himself in the chamber and returned to his own room 
through the hall of the guards. 

There was a grand ball in the Gallery of Mirrors, 
December 11. The pyramids of candles glittered even 



1 Eoom No. 114 of the Notice du Musee. 

2 Room No. 115 of the Notice du Musee. 



234 TEE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

more than the lustres and girandoles. Louis XIV. 
had said he would be pleased to have the court display- 
great luxury, and himself, though for a long while 
he had worn none but very simple costumes, had put 
on a superb one. It was who should surpass the 
others in richness and invention. There was hardly 
silver and gold enough to be had. The King, who 
had encouraged all these expenses, said notwith- 
standing, that he could not understand how husbands 
could be foolish enough to let themselves be ruined 
by their wives' dresses. 

Two days after the marriage the Duchess wanted 
to show herself in state dress to her friends at Saint- 
Cyr. She was all in white, and her robe was so 
heavily embroidered with silver that she could hardly 
bear the weight of it. The community received the 
Princess in great pomp and conducted her to the 
church, where hymns were chanted. 

The separation of the young spouses lasted for two 
years after the ceremony of their marriage, and, 
according to Dangeau's journal, did not end until 
toward the close of 1699. Until then the Duke 
of Burgundy came to see the Duchess every day. 
They were even allowed to chat together, but there 
were always ladies in the room during their inter- 
views. 

The amiable Princess is now one of the most at- 
tractive of women. Without her all would wither at 
this court, which would resemble a magnificent con- 
vent. The flowers would be less fair, the fields less 



THE DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 235 

gay, the streams less clear. Thanks to her seduc- 
tive charm everything revives, all lights up under the 
rays of a vernal sun. She loves Louis XIV. sin- 
cerely. One cannot approach this exceptional man, 
for whom the word prestige would have to be in- 
vented if it did not exist, and who is as affectionate, 
good, and affable as he is majestic and imposing. 
The admiration professed for him by the young Prin- 
cess is sincere. Grateful and flattered by the kind- 
ness he shows her, she venerates him as the most 
glorious representative of divine right, and while 
she venerates she amuses him. She flings her arms 
about his neck at any time, she sits down on his 
knees, she diverts him by every sort of badinage, she 
looks at his papers, she opens and reads his letters in 
his presence. A continual succession of pleasure 
parties and entertainments goes on. Followed by a 
train of women of twenty, the Princess loves to sail 
in a gondola on the grand canal of the Park of Ver- 
sailles, and to remain there several hours of the night, 
sometimes until sunrise. Hunts, collations, come- 
dies, serenades, illuminations, sailing parties, fire- 
works, every day a new diversion is organized. 

The King wishes that the Duchess of Burgundy 
should please herself in this court of which she is the 
ornament and the hope. She must smooth out the 
wrinkles of the monarch, who is weary of fame and 
pleasures. She must be the good genius, the en- 
chantress of Versailles. The mirrors of the great 
gallery must reflect her splendid toilets, her dazzling 



236 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

ornaments. She must appear in the gardens like an 
Armida, in the forests like a nymph, on the water 
like a siren. 

In the hall of the Queen's guards ^ there may be 
seen at present a full length portrait of the Princess. 
She is standing, dressed in a robe of cloth of silver, 
and holds in her left hand a bouquet of orange flowers. 
A woman in Polish costume is holding up the train 
of her lilied mantle. In front of her a cupid is hold- 
ing a cushion on which flowers are lying. At the 
back of the picture one sees a garden and a pedestal 
on which is the signature of the painter: Santerre, 
1709. What the artist has done so well with his 
brush Saint-Simon has done still better with his pen. 
The sarcastic Duke and peer becomes an enthusiastic 
admirer, a poet, when he describes the charms of the 
Princess : her eyes the most beautiful and speaking in 
the world, her gallant, gracious, majestic pose of the 
head, her expressive smile, her gait like that of a 
goddess on the clouds. He admires her moral quali- 
ties no less, even while finding defects in her. It 
pleases him to recognize that she is sweet, accessi- 
ble, candid, though with due reserve, compassionate, 
grieved to cause the least sadness, full of considera- 
tion for all who come near her, gracious to those 
about her, kind to her domestics, friendly to her 
ladies, and the soul of the court which adores her; 
"all is lacking to every one in her absence, all is 

1 Koom No. 118 of the Notice du Musee. 



THE DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 237 

replenished by her presence, her extreme kindness 
makes her infinitely depended on, and her manners 
attach all hearts." 

Nevertheless calumny does not spare her. People 
accuse her in a whisper with certain inconsistencies 
which malice bruits about and exaggerates. They 
go so far as to pretend that two lovers, MM. de Mau- 
levrier and de Nangis are extremely well treated 
by her. They wish to discover serious faults in 
what is nothing but the desire to please, natural to 
all pretty women. Madame de Caylus says concern- 
ing the passion attributed to the Duchess for M. de 
Nangis : " I am convinced that this intrigue was car- 
ried on by looks, or at most by letters. I am per- 
suaded of this for two reasons, one that Madame the 
Dauphiness was too well guarded, and the other that 
Nangis was too much in love with another woman 
who watched him closely, and who has said to me 
that at the times when he was suspected of being 
with Madame the Dauphiness she was very sure that 
he was not, because he was with her. It was much 
rather a gallantry than a passion." Surrounded by 
a court of witty, gossiping, and often light young 
women, the Duchess of Burgundy must more than 
once have been attacked by malevolent insinuations 
and the little perfidies, which the jealousy inherent 
in the feminine character allows itself against prin- 
cesses as well as against private persons. The 
Duchess understood it perfectly and was moved and 
afflicted by it. 



238 1HE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Other causes for sadness threw their shadows over 
an existence apparently so fair and joyous. Victor 
Amadeus had quarrelled with France, and the house 
of Savoy was incurring the greatest dangers. The 
Duchess of Burgundy was obliged to conceal her sen- 
timents for her former country in the depths of her 
heart, but the more necessary it was to hide them the 
more vivacious they became. What a grief to know 
that her pregnant mother, her infirm grandmother, 
her sick brothers, and the Duke, her father, were 
wandering on the Piedmont road, threatened with 
utter ruin. June 21, 1706, she wrote to her grand- 
mother,! the widow of Charles Emmanuel : " Judge 
what is my anxiety about all that is happening to 
you, loving you so tenderly, and having all the affec- 
tion possible for my father, my mother, and my 
brothers. I cannot see them in such an unfortunate 
condition without having tears in my eyes. ... I 
am in a sadness which no amusement can diminish, 
and which will not depart, my dear grandmother, 
until your sorrows do. . . . Send me news of all 
that is dearest to me in the world." ^ 

The Duchess of Burgundy suffered simultaneously 

1 Marie-Jeanne-Baptiste, called Madame Royale, daughter of 
Charles Amadeus of Savoy and Elizabeth of Vendome, espoused 
in 1665 the Duke of Savoy, Charles Emmanuel II., father of Victor 
Amadeus II. 

2 See the interesting correspondence of the Duchess of Bur- 
gundy and her sister the Queen of Spain, wife of Philip V., pub- 
lished, with a very good preface, by Madame the Countess Delia 
Eocca. 



THU DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 289 

from the disasters of both her countries, Savoy and 
France. " Make us some saints to obtain peace for 
us," said Madame de Maintenon to the inmates of 
Saint-Cyr. The Duchess, as Labeaumelle remarks, 
exhibited in the perilous circumstances of the coun- 
try " the dignity of the first woman of the State, the 
sentiments of a Roman matron for Rome, and the 
agitations of a soul which desired the good with an 
ardor beyond her age." 

The hour of great sorrows had arrived. As M. 
Capefigue has said so well : " The difficult time for 
a powerful and fortunate King is old age. Though 
the head remain j&rm, the arms grow feeble, gar- 
lands wither, even laurels take a grayish tint. Peo- 
ple respect you still, but they do not love you any 
more; cocked hats with waving plumes bring out 
the wrinkles of the face and the lines of the fore- 
head; the gold-headed cane is no longer a sort of 
sceptre, but a staff which sustains the feeble legs and 
the stooping body." For the Duchess of Burgundy 
the aging Louis XIV. preserved all his prestige. 
She loved him sincerely. " The public," says Ma- 
dame de Caylus, " has difficulty in comprehending 
that princes act simply and naturally, because they 
do not see them near enough at hand to judge, and 
because the marvellous that they are always seeking is 
never found in simple conduct and orderly senti- 
ments. Hence they wish to believe that the Duchess 
resembled her father, and that at the age of eleven, 
when she came to France, she was as crafty and 



240 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

politic as he was, and affected for tlie King and 
Madame de Maintenon a tenderness she did not 
possess. I, who have had the honor of seeing her 
very near, judge otherwise. I have seen her weep- 
ing in such good faith over the great age of these 
two persons, who she thought must die before her, 
that I cannot doubt her tenderness for the King." 

Louis XIV., who knew the human heart, perceived 
with his usual perspicacity that the Duchess of Bur- 
gundy had a sincere affection for him. It was on 
that account that he displayed an exceptional attach- 
ment for her. Like a rose blooming in a cemetery, 
the young and enchanting Princess charmed and con- 
soled the sorrowful years of the great King. It was 
the last smile of fortune, the last ray of sunlight. 
But alas ! the fair rose was to bloom but a day, and 
yet a little longer and all would be enshrouded in 
gloom. 

Since 1711, when Monseigneur died, the Duke of 
Burgundy had been Dauphin, and Saint-Simon re- 
ports that the Duchess said, in speaking of the ladies 
who criticised her : " They will have to reckon with 
me, and I will be their queen." " Alas ! " he adds, 
"she believed it, the charming Princess, and who 
would not have believed it with her?" And yet, 
according to the Princess Palatine, she was convinced 
that her end was near. Madame thus expresses her- 
self : " A learned astrologer of Turin, having drawn 
the horoscope of Madame the Dauphiness, had pre- 
dicted to her all that would happen to her, and that 



THE DUCHESS OF BUBGUNDY 241 

she would die in her twenty-seventh year. She often 
spoke of it. One day she said to her husband : ' See, 
the time is coming when I must die. You cannot 
remain without a wife on account of your rank and 
your devotion. Tell me, I entreat you, whom you 
will marry ? ' He answered : ' I hope God will never 
punish me enough to let me see you die ; and if this 
misfortune must befall me, I shall never remarry, 
for I should follow you to the grave in eight days. 
. . .' While the Dauphiness was still in good health, 
fresh and gay, she often said : ' Well, I must rejoice, 
because I cannot rejoice long, for I shall die this 
year.' I thought it was a pleasantry ; but the thing 
was only too real. When she fell ill she said she 
would not recover." 

The nearer the Dauphiness approached the fatal 
time the better she grew. One might have thought 
she wanted to deepen the grief that would be caused 
by her premature death. The Princess Palatine, 
ordinarily so malevolent, so sarcastic, avows it her- 
self: "Having," says she, "enough intelligence to 
note her faults, the Dauphiness could not do other 
than try to correct them ; this, in fact, is what she 
did, and to such a point as to excite general astonish- 
ment. She continued thus to the end." 

Madame the Viscountess de Noailles ^ has said in 



^ Lettres inedites de la Duchesse de Bourgogne, preceded by a 
short notice of her life by Madame the Viscountess de Noailles. 
A volume of fifty pages of which only a small number of copies has 
been printed. 



242 TEE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

the most touching way : " From time to time history 
offers us attractive personages who move the reader 
even to affection. . . . Providence frequently with- 
draws them from the world in their youth, still 
adorned with the charms which time removes, and the 
hopes which it might have realized. The Duchess of 
Burgundy was one of these graceful apparitions." 

Attacked with a terrible malady which was, it 
appears, the measles, but which was attributed to 
poison, the Duchess was taken away in a few days 
from the King of whom she was the consolation, the 
husband who idolized her, the court whose ornament 
she was, and France of which she was the hope. She 
died with equal dignity and courage in the most 
religious sentiments. 

It was in her bedroom at Versailles,^ on Friday, 
February 12, 1712, between eight and nine in the 
evening, that she breathed her last. Almost exactly 
two years before, in the same room, she had brought 
into the world the prince who was to be called Louis 
XV.2 Her husband's grief was such that he could 
not survive a wife so beloved. Six days afterward 
he followed her to the tomb. " France," cries Saint- 
Simon, "fell at last beneath this final chastisement. 
God had shown her a prince whom she did not 
deserve. The earth was not worthy of him ; he died 
ripe already for a blissful eternity." The very day 



1 Room No. 115 of the Notice du Musee. 

2 Louis XV. was born February 5, 1710. 



THE DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 243 

of the Duke of Burgundy's death Madame wrote : 
"I am so overwhelmed that I cannot recover; I 
scarcely know what I am saying. You who have a 
good heart will certainly pity us, for the sadness that 
prevails here cannot be described." 

Saint-Simon pretends that the sorrow caused Louis 
XIV. by the death of the Duchess of Burgundy "was 
the only real one he ever had in his life." This is not 
exact. The great King had profoundly regretted his 
mother, and Madame (the Princess Palatine) thus 
expresses herself concerning the grief that over- 
whelmed him in the death of his only son, the grand 
Dauphin: "I saw the King yesterday at eleven 
o'clock ; he is a prey to such affliction that he would 
soften a rock ; he does not fret, however, he speaks 
to everyone with a resigned sadness, and gives his 
orders with great firmness, but the tears come into 
his eyes every moment, and he stifles his sobso''^ 
Such was the man whom superficial minds character- 
ize as egoistic and insensitive. 

On February 22, 1712, the bodies of the Duchess 
and the Duke of Burgundy were borne from Ver- 
sailles to Saint-Denis on a single bier. The Dau- 
phin, their eldest son, died the following March 8. 
He was five years and some months old. Thus the 
father, the mother, and the eldest son disappeared 
within twenty-four days. Three dauphins had died 
in a single year. 

1 Letter of April 16, 1711. 



244 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

These events, so horrible in themselves, were made 
still more so by the widely prevalent false idea that 
these premature deaths were the result of poison. 
The Duke of Orleans was most perfidiously and 
unjustly accused of being the author of these crimes, 
and efforts were made to induce Louis XIV. to enter- 
tain this abominable suspicion. With the Duchess 
of Burgundy "were eclipsed joy, pleasures, amuse- 
ments even, and every sort of favors. ... If the 
court existed after her, it was only to languish." ^ 

And yet, under the weight of so many trials the 
great soul of Louis XIV. was not enfeebled. 
" Amidst the lugubrious debris of his august house, 
Louis remains firm in the faith. God had breathed 
upon his numerous posterity, and in an instant it was 
effaced like characters written on the sand. Of all 
the princes who had surrounded him, and who formed 
as it were the rays and the glory of his crown, there 
remained but one feeble spark even then on the point 
of being extinguished. He adores Him who dis- 
poses of crowns and sceptres, and perhaps he sees in 
these domestic losses the mercy which is completing 
the effacement from the book of the Lord's justice 
the traces of his former guilty passions. "^ 

All France was in despair. " This time of deso- 
lation," says Voltaire, "left so profound an impres- 
sion in hearts that, during the minority of Louis XV. 



1 Memoirs of the Dioke de Saint-Simon. 

* Massillon, Orasion funebre de Louis le Gfrand. 



THE DUCHESS OF BUBGUNBY 245 

I have seen many persons who could not speak of 
these losses without shedding tears." ^ 

M. Michelet, who cannot be accused of exaggerated 
admiration for the great century, is himself affected 
while relating the death of the charming Duchess 
of Burgundy, "The court," he says, "was literally 
as if stunned by the blow. One still weeps, a hun- 
dred and fifty years afterward, in reading the heart- 
rending pages in which Saint-Simon records his 
grief." 2 

Duclos has claimed, without indicating the source 
whence he obtained his information, that on the 
death of the Duchess of Burgundy, Madame de 
Maintenon and the King found in a casket that had 
belonged to the Princess, papers which extorted from 
the King the exclamation: "The little rogue be- 
trayed us." From such a speech, so unlikely from 
the mouth of Louis XIV., Duclos infers a corre- 
spondence in which the daughter of Victor Amadeus 
had surrendered State secrets to him. This we 
believe to be one of those numerous hearsays, from 
which history is too often written. The archives of 
Turin have preserved no trace of this pretended 
correspondence, which is neither true nor probable. 
Assuredly the Duchess of Burgundy did not forget 
her native land. But after bidding adieu to Savoy, 
she had no longer any country but France. 



1 Voltaire, Steele de Louis XIV. 

2 Michelet, Louis XIV- et le due de Bourgogne. 



246 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Doubtless, Italy may count among the fairest 
pearls of her casket those two intelligent and allur- 
ing sisters who both died so prematurely and left 
behind them so touching a remembrance : the Duch- 
ess of Burgundy and her sister the Queen of Spain, 
the valiant consort of Philip V. But the greater 
part of the Duchess of Burgundy's destiny was ful- 
filled in France, and her portrait must figure in the 
chateau of Versailles. 

How many times in 1871, when the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs was, so to say, encamped in the midst 
of the Queen's apartments, did we evoke the souvenir 
of the charming Princess in this chamber where she 
slept from the time of her arrival at Versailles, and 
where, sixteen years and a half later, she breathed 
her last sigh ! It was there that at eleven years of 
age, torn forever from her family, her friends, her 
country, she found herself alone among the splen- 
dors of a strange palace. 'Twas there the child 
grew, became a young girl, and then a young woman, 
increasing daily in graces and attractions. There, 
in the silence of the night she thought she beheld 
the brilliant phantoms of the world, the seductive 
images against which, perhaps, her reason battled 
with her heart. There she recalled, to aid her 
in resisting the temptations of an ardent soul, the 
austere instructions of Madame de Maintenon, who 
had written to her : " Have a horror of sin. Vice is 
full of evils and afflictions, even in this world. 
There is no joy, no repose, no true delight, but in 



THE DUCHESS OF BURGUNDY 247 

serving God." It was there that she beheld death 
commg, and welcomed its approach with a noble and 
religious courage. Poor Princess ! Even in presence 
of her dead body disputes over etiquette went on. 
"Four bishops sitting in rochet and camail at the 
right side of the bed relieved each other like the 
ladies, when notified by the agents of the clergy. 
They claimed chairs with backs, kneeling cushions, 
and a holy water sprinkler. The first two were 
refused them ; they had nothing but folding stools, 
and no cushions. They made such an outcry that 
they got the sprinkler." 

Strictly speaking, history is nothing but a long 
funeral sermon. The more closely it is studied, the 
more it is seen to be full of tears. The view of a 
palace is as fruitful in lessons as that of a cemetery, 
and the chS-teau of Versailles, when one is surrounded 
there by the illustrious shades that have occupied it, 
suddenly assumes the aspect of an immense cata- 
falque. The gildings are veiled with crape. One 
fancies that the fountains are weeping, and the sun 
of the great King is hidden behind a heavy cloud. 
Death is in every chamber, it stands at every door to 
make its dismal voice listened to, and to repeat the 
great saying : Vanity, all is vanity. 



CONCLUSION 



THE TOMBS 



IT is the most melancholy of all spectacles to re- 
behold, in the trappings of sadness and death, 
the places which were once the theatre of splendors 
or of fetes. While listening to the prayers of the 
dying succeed the flare of trumpets and joyous orches- 
tral harmonies, one reflects painfully on the things of 
earth, and comprehends the inanity of glory, riches, 
and pleasure. The courtiers of Louis XIV. had to 
endure this impression when " this monarch of happi- 
ness, of majesty, of apotheosis,"' as Saint-Simon says, 
was about to breathe his last. The incomparable 
Gallery of Mirrors was now merely the vestibule of 
a death chamber. The triumphant paintings of 
Lebrun seemed darkened. The place of transports 
had changed its aspect; the modern Olympus was 
vanishing before the great Christian idea, and this 
King, " the terror of his neighbors, the astonishment 
of the universe, the father of kings, grander than 
all his ancestors, more magnificent than Solomon," ^ 

1 Massillon, Oraison funebre de Louis le Grand. 
248 



THE TOMBS 249 



seemed to be saying with the Preacher: "I have sur- 
passed in glory and in wisdom all those who have 
preceded me in Jerusalem, and I have recognized 
that even in this there was nothing but vanity and 
affliction of spirit." 

During the last illness of him who had been the 
Sun-King, the court remained all day long in the 
Gallery of Mirrors. No one stopped in the CEil-de- 
Boeuf except the domestic servants and the physi- 
cians. As to Madame de Maintenon, in spite of her 
eighty years and her infirmities, she nursed the august 
invalid with great devotion, and often remained beside 
his bed for fourteen hours together. "The King 
bade me adieu three times," she related afterwards to 
the ladies of Saint-Cyr ; " the first time, he said he had 
no regret but that of leaving me, but that we should 
soon see each other again ; I begged him to think no 
longer of anything but God. The second, he asked 
me to pardon him for not having lived well enough 
with me ; he added that he had not made me happy, 
but that he had always loved and esteemed me 
equally. He was weeping, and he asked if any one 
were present. I told him no ; then he said : ' Even 
though they should hear me crying with you, no one 
would be surprised.' I went away so as not to do 
him any harm. The third time he said to me : 
' What is going to become of you, for you have noth- 
ing ? ' I answered him : ' I am a nonentity ; do not 
think of anything but God,' and I left him." 

Louis XIV. deserved the name of Great until his 



250 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

latest breath. He died still better than he had lived. 
All that was elevated, majestic, grandiose in this 
chosen soul is summed up in the final moment. His 
death is that of a king, a hero, and a saint. Like the 
first Christians, he made a sort of public confession ; 
he said, August 26, 1715, to those who were admitted 
to his presence : " Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for 
the bad examples I have given you. I have to thank 
you much for the way in which you have served me, 
and the attachment and fidelity you have always 
shown for me. ... I see that I am affected, and 
that I am affecting you also ; I beg your pardon for 
it. Adieu, gentlemen ; I rely upon your remember- 
ing me sometimes." He gave his blessing the same 
day to the little Dauphin, and addressed him in these 
beautiful words : " My dear child, you are going to 
be the greatest king of the world. Never forget your 
obligations to God. Do not imitate me in wars ; try 
always to preserve peace with your neighbors, and to 
assist your people as much as you can, which I have 
had the misfortune not to be able to do on account 
of the necessities of the State. Always follow wise 
counsels, and remember well that it is to God you 
owe all that you are. I give you P^re Letellier for 
confessor; follow his advice, and always remember 
the obligations which you owe to Madame de Ven- 
tadour." ^ 

1 M. Le Koi, in his work entitled Curiosites historiques, has proved 
that these were the exact terms employed by Louis XIV. in his 
address to Louis XV. 



THE TOMBS 251 



During the night of August 27-28, the dying 
man was seen joining his hands at every moment; 
he said his customary prayers, and at the Confiteor he 
smote his breast. In the morning of the 28th he 
saw in the mirror on his chimney piece two domes- 
tics who were shedding tears. " Why are you weep- 
ing ? " he said to them ; " did you think I was im- 
mortal ? " An elixir intended to restore him to life 
was handed him. " To life or to death ! " he an- 
swered, taking the glass; "all that pleases God." 
His confessor asked if he suffered much. " Eh ! 
no," he replied, " that is what displeases me ; I would 
like to suffer more in expiation of my sins." In 
giving his orders, August 29, he happened to speak 
of the Dauphin as the young king. And as he 
observed the movement it caused in those around 
him: "Eh! why?" he exclaimed, "that gives me 
no pain." This is what made Massillon say : " This 
monarch environed by such glory, and who saw 
around him so many objects capable of arousing his 
desires or his tenderness, cast not even one regretful 
glance on life. How grand is man when he is so 
through faith ! . . . Vanity has never had more than 
the mask of grandeur; it is grace which is the reality." 

During the daytime of August 29, the dying man 
lost consciousness, and it was thought he had but a 
few more hours to live. " You are no longer neces- 
sary to him," said his confessor to Madame de Main- 
tenon ; " you can go away." Marshal de Villeroy 
exhorted her not to remain any longer, and to go to 



252 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

Saint-Cyr, where she could rest after so much emo- 
tion. He posted the King's guards along the road 
and lent her his carriage. " Some popular commo- 
tion may be feared," said he, " and possibly the road 
may not be safe." Madame de Maintenon, enfeebled, 
disturbed by age and sorrow, made the mistake of 
listening to such pusillanimous counsels. Posterity 
will always reproach her with a weakness unworthy 
of this woman of intelligence and feeling. There 
are positions which oblige. Madame de Maintenon 
ought to have closed the eyes of the great King, 
and prayed beside his corpse. The courtiers, who 
prescribed the resolutions of egoism and fear, are 
chiefly to be blamed. Ah ! how they are abandoned, 
" the gods of flesh and blood, the gods of clay and 
dust," when they are going down to the grave. A 
few domestics alone lament them. The crowd is 
indifferent, or it rejoices. The courtiers turn toward 
the rising sun. Alas ! what a contrast between the 
throne and the coflin ! The death of a man is 
always a subject for philosophic reflections. What 
is it then, when he who dies has called himself 
Louis XIV. 

August 30, the dying man returned to conscious- 
ness and asked for Madame de Maintenon. She was 
sent for to Saint-Cyr. She came back. The King 
recognized her, said a few more words, and then 
drowsed. In the evening she descended the marble 
staircase which she was never to ascend again, and 
went to Saint-Cyr to shut herself up forever. 



THE TOMBS 253 



On Saturday, August 31, towards eleven o'clock 
in the evening, the prayers for the dying were said 
for Louis XIV. He recited them himself in a 
louder voice than any of the spectators ; and seemed 
still more majestic on his deathbed than on his 
throne. When the prayers were ended he recog- 
nized Cardinal de Rohan and said to him : " These 
are the last graces of the Church." Several times 
he repeated: '•'•Nunc et in Jiora mortis. Now and at 
the hour of our 'death." Then he said : " O God, 
come unto mine aid ; O Lord, make haste to help me." 
These were his last words. The agony was begin- 
ning. It lasted all night, and on Sunday, Septem- 
ber 1, 1715, at a quarter past eight in the morning, 
Louis XIV., aged seventy-seven years lacking three 
days, during sixty-two of which he had been king, 
yielded his great soul to God. 

One does not terminate the study of a memorable 
epoch without a sentiment of regret. After having 
lived for some time by the life of a celebrated per- 
sonage, one suffers from his death, and is affected at 
his tomb. When reading Saint-Simon, does not one 
seem present at the death agony of Louis XIV., and 
feel the tears welling into his eyes as if he were 
mingling with the loyal servitors who are weeping 
for the best of masters and the greatest of kings ? 

As soon as the tidings of the death of Louis XIV. 
reached Saint-Cyr, Mademoiselle d'Aumale entered 
Madame de Maintenon's chamber. " Madame," said 



254 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

she, "the whole house is at prayer, in the choir." 
Madame de Maintenon understood, she raised her 
hands to heaven, weeping, and then repaired to the 
church, where she was present at the office for the 
dead. Then she dismissed her servants, and got rid 
of her carriage, " unable," as she said, " to reconcile 
herself to feeding horses while so many young girls 
were in need." She lived in her modest apartment in 
profound peace. She submitted to the regulations 
of the house as far as her age permitted, and never 
went out except to go to the village to visit the 
sick and the poor. When Peter the Great went to 
Saint-Cyr, June 10, 1717, the illustrious octogenarian 
was suffering. The Czar sat down beside the bed of 
this woman whose name he had heard so often. He 
asked her, through an interpreter, if she were ill. 
She answered Yes. He wanted to know what her 
malady was. " A great old age," she replied. 

Madame de Maintenon died at Saint-Cyr, August 
15, 1719. For two days she remained exposed on 
her bed " with an air so sweet and so devout, that 
one would have said she was praying to God." ^ She 
was buried in the choir of the church. A modest 
slab of marble indicates the spot where her body 
reposes. It was there the novices went to weep 
and pray before dedicating themselves forever to 
the Lord. 

Now that we have quitted Versailles, let us go 

1 Memoires des dames de Saint-Cyr. 



THE TOMBS 255 



down into the crypts where lie these beautiful hero- 
ines, these famous women whose gracious figures we 
have endeavored to evoke. Mademoiselle de La 
Valli^re rests at Paris in the Carmelite church of 
the rue Saint- Jacques ; Queen Marie Th^rese, the 
two Duchesses of Orleans, the Bavarian dauphiness, 
and the Duchess of Burgundy at Saint-Denis. There 
they sleep their slumber, in those gloomy abodes 
where, as Bossuet says, the ranks are so crowded, so 
prompt is death to fill the places. There one should 
go to meditate, there to draw the conclusions from 
histories which have their lessons, there to listen 
to the great Christian maxim: Memento homo quia 
pulvis es, et in pulverim reverteris. 

Bossuet says in speaking of the Pharaohs, that they 
did not even possess their sepulchres. Such was also 
the destiny of Louis XIV. This potentate who had 
given laws to Europe, did not even possess his tomb. 
The profaners of graves descended into the subterra- 
nean abode of " annihilated princes," and in spite of 
their rear-guard of eight centuries of kings, as Cha- 
teaubriand says, the great shade of Louis XIV. could 
not defend the majesty of sepulchres which all the 
world had deemed inviolable. 

During the session of July 21, 1794, Barrdre read 
to the Convention, in the name of the Committee of 
Public Safety, a long report in which he demanded, 
that in order to celebrate the anniversary of August 
Tenth, the mausoleums of Saint-Denis should be 
destroyed. " Under the monarchy," said he, " even 



256 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

tombs had learned to flatter kings ; royal pomp and 
pride could not be lessened on this theatre of death, 
and the sceptre bearers who have caused so many 
woes to France and to humanity seem still, even 
in the grave, to pride themselves on a vanished 
grandeur. The powerful hand of the Republic 
should pitilessly efface these mausoleums which 
recall the frightful memory of kings." The Con- 
vention carried by acclamation a decree conformable 
to this report. Considering that " the country was 
in danger and lacked cannons wherewith to defend 
itself," it decided that "the tombs of the former 
kings should be destroyed on the ensuing 10th oi 
August." It appointed commissioners empowered to 
go to Saint-Denis for the purpose of proceeding " to 
the exhuming of the former kings and queens, 
princes and princesses," and decreed the breaking of 
the coffins in order to melt the lead, and send it to 
the national foundries. 

This odious decree was strictly executed.^ Kings, 
queens, princes, and princesses were torn from their 
sepulchres. The lead was carried, as fast as it was 
found, to a cemetery in which a foundry had been 
established, and the corpses were cast into the com- 
mon grave. The vandalism of the revolutionists and 
the atheists took delight in this spectacle. Assuredly, 
as Chateaubriand writes, " God, in the effusion of 



1 See the interesting work of M. George d'Heylli, Les Tombes 
royales de Saint-Denis. 



THE TOMBS 257 



His wrath, had sworn by Himself to punish France. 
Seek not on earth the causes of such events; they 
are higher than that." 

A few weeks later came the turn of Madame de 
Maintenon's dead body. In January, 1794, while 
the church of Saint-Cyr was being transformed into 
hospital wards, the workmen perceived a slab of 
black marble amidst the debris of the devastated 
choir. It was the tomb of Madame de Maintenon. 
They broke it, opened the vault, and taking out the 
body, dragged it into the court with dreadful yells 
and threw it, stripped and mutilated, into a hole in 
the cemetery. On that day the unrecognized spouse 
of Louis XIV. was treated like a queen ! 

Thus then, these illustrious heroines of Versailles, 
the good Marie Th^r^se, the clever Maintenon, the 
melancholy Bavarian dauphiness, the haughty Prin- 
cess Palatine, the alluring Duchess of Burgundy, 
were dispossessed of their tombs. Listening to the 
tale of such iconoclastic and sacrilegious rage, the 
heart contracts and feels the anguish of an inexpres- 
sible sadness. A sentiment of holy wrath against 
such odious profanations and savage furies blends 
with profound reflections on the nothingness of 
human things. More eloquent, more terrible than 
any funeral sermon, history assumes a sepulchral 
tone and speaks more forcibly than the preachers of 
the great century. The shades of these once flat- 
tered women come before us one after another, and 
as they pass each seems to say like F^nelon in his 



258 THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES 

book of prayers : " What does not one do to find a 
false happiness? What rebuffs, what thwartings 
does not one endure for a phantom of worldly glory ? 
What pains for wretched pleasures of which nothing 
is left but remorse?" From the depths of the dust 
of graves profound, the dazzled eye suddenly per- 
ceives arising a pure, an incorruptible radiance which 
places in their true light all things here below, and 
one recalls the saying of Massillon before the coffin 
of Louis XIV. : " God alone is great, my brethren." 



INDEX 



Apartment days, at Versailles, 139- 
141. 

Arnauld, his words concerning wed- 
ding of Louis XIV. and Madame 
de Maintenon, 124. 

Athalie, Racine's, performance of, 
153. 

Augustine, Saint. See Saint Augus- 
tine. 

Barrere, 255. 

Bassompierre, words of, concerning 
Chateau of Versailles, 29, 30. 

Bavarian Dauphiness, the, dates of 
her birth and marriage, 41, 104; 
her sad life, 104, 116 ; her death, 
104; her life at Munich, 105; 
meets Bossuet, 105; accompanies 
Bossuet to Versailles, 106 ; birth 
of her son, 107, 108 ; occupies the 
Queen's room. 111 ; her sadness, 
112, 113, 115 ; deserted by all, 113 ; 
painting of by Delutel, 114 ; her 
words to the Princess Palatine, 
115; foresaw her end, 115; her 
burial place, 255 ; her tomb dese- 
crated, 257. 

Berry, Duchess of, the symbol of 
her age, 26. 

Blois, Mademoiselle de, 41. See 
Conti, Princess de. 

Blois, Mademoiselle, Duchess de 
Chartres also called, 224. 

Bossuet, denies absolution to Mad- 
ame de Montespan, 74; his ex- 
hortations to Louis XIV., 76, 78, 
79 ; visits Madame de Montespan 



for religious counsel, 77; criti- 
cised for his conduct, 77, 78; 
unable to prevent meeting of 
Louis Xrv. and Madame de 
Montespan, 81; meets and con- 
ducts the Bavarian Dauphiness 
to Versailles, 105, 106; received 
cordially by Louis XIV., 106; his 
words on the revocation of the 
Edict of Nantes, 192, 193, 210. 

Bourbon, Duchess of, her birth and 
marriage, 215, 221; her beauty, 
222; her amour with the second 
Prince de Conti, 222, 223; loses 
her husband, 223. 

Bourbon, Duke de, 215, 221, 223. 

Bourdaloue, active in the conver- 
sion of Louis XIV., 75; his ex- 
hortations, 75, 76. 

Burgundy, Duchess of, 10, 13, 18 ; 
the symbol of her age, 26; her 
arrival in France, 229; charms 
Louis XIV., 229, 230; attentions 
of Louis XIV. to, 231 ; her educa- 
tion finished by Madame de Main- 
tenon, 231, 232; ceremonies at 
her marriage, 232-234; her at- 
tractiveness, 234, 235; her ai¥ec- 
tion and admiration for Louis 
XIV., 235 ; her pleasures, 235 ; her 
portrait, 236; Saint-Simon's ad- 
miration for, 236 ; her numerous 
charms, 236, 237; the victim of 
calumny, 237; her anxiety on 
behalf of her family, 238; her 
sorrows, 238, 239; becomes the 
Dauphiness, 240 ; convinced that 



259. 



260 



INDEX 



her end was near, 240, 241 ; her 
death, 242; her burial, 243; re- 
ported to have betrayed state 
secrets, 245 ; a review of the ca- 
reer of, 246, 247 ; her burial place, 
255; her tomb desecrated, 257. 
Burgundy, Duke of, 232-234, 240, 
242. 

Caylus, Marquise de, her words con- 
cerning Marie Therese's timidity, 
60; concerning the King's bas- 
tards, 63; concerning Madame 
de Montespan, 69, 72, 73; con- 
cerning Louis XIV., 72; her de- 
scription of the interview between 
Louis XIV. and Madame de 
Montespan, 81, 82; concerning 
grief of Madame de Maintenon 
and Madame de Montespan at 
death of Marie The'rese, 111 ; con- 
cerning the Bavarian Dauphin- 
ess, 113; educated by Madame 
de Maintenon, 143, 145; her 
cleverness, 144; her birth and 
parentage 144 ; conveyed to Saint- 
Germain, 144 ; becomes a Catholic, 
144; her hand sought in mar- 
riage, 145, 146 ; her marriage, 146 ; 
her grace and wit, 146 ; takes part 
in presentation of Esther, 147- 
149, 151; her love of pleasure, 
153 ; contracts a liaison with the 
Duke de Villeroy, 154; finds the 
court dull, 154; sent away from 
the court, 154, 155 ; pardoned and 
returns, 155 ; her Souvenirs, 155, 
156. 

Chambre des Bassans, 136, 137. 

Chartres, Duchess de, her birth and 
marriage, 215, 224, 225; her 
timidity before Louis XIV., 226; 
her intelligence, 226; ill-treated 
by Saint-Simon, 226, 227. 

Chartres, Duke de, 178, 179, 215, 
224, 225. 

Chasles, fimile, his words con- 
cerning Madame de Maintenon, 
188. 



Chateau of Versailles, the. See 
Versailles. 

Chateauroux, Duchess de, her brief 
life, 24. 

Choin, Mademoiselle, 218, 219. 

Choisy, Abbe de, his words con- 
cerning Louis XIV. and Madame 
de Maintenon, 120; his words 
concerning Marquise de Caylus, 
146. 

Clagny, Chateau of, 80, 210. 

Clermont, M., 219. 

Colbert, 71. 

Conde, Prince of, urges Louis XIV. 
to legitimate his bastard chil- 
dren, 63, 227. 

Conti, Prince de, 215, 216, 218. 

Conti, the second Prince de, 222, 
223. 

Conti, Princess de, her birth and 
marriage, 41, 215 ; her legitima- 
tion, 216; the words of Louis 
XIV. concerning, 216 ; her grace 
and attractiveness, 216, 218 ; her 
marriage, 216; loses her hus- 
band, 218; her intrigue with M. 
Clermont, 219; her pleasures, 
218, 220. 

Dauphin, the, 113, 114, 218, 219, 

240. 
Dangeau, 210, 229, 230. 
Deshoulieres, Madame, lines of, 

193. 
Diana of Poitiers, 121. 
Dubarry, Madame, 18. 
Duclos, his statement that the 

Duchess of Burgundy betrayed 

state secrets, 245. 

Elisabeth, Madame, 18. 
Esther, Racine's, performance of, 
at Saint-Cyr, 148-153. 

Fdcheux, Le, performance of, at 

Versailles, 31. 
Femmes Savantes, Les, performed 

at Versailles, 33. 



INDEX 



261 



Fenelon, his words to Madame de 
Maintenon, 188; approves prin- 
ciple of revocation of Edict of 
Nantes, 194. 

Fetes de V Amour et de Bacchus, 
performed at Versailles, 32. 

Fontanges, Mademoiselle de, 
Louis XIV. 's passion for, 48, 64, 
83, 84. 

Georges Dandin, performed at 
Versailles, 32. 

Girardin, Saint Marc, his words 
concerning Madame de Mainte- 
non, 86. 

Grand-Couvert, the hall of the, 8. 

Gratry, Pere, quoted, 13. 

Hausset, Madame du, her words of 
sympathy for Madame de Pom- 
padour, 24. 

Henrietta of England, 230. 

History, nothing but a long fu- 
neral sermon, 247. 

La Bessola, 113. 

La Bruyere, quoted, 100. 

La Fayette, Madame de, her words 
concerning Louis XIV., 46; her 
words concerning the Bavarian 
Dauphiness, 114, 115. 

La Fontaine, his dedication to 
Madame de Montespan of his 
seventh book of fables, 70. 

Lamartine, verses of, quoted, 12; 
defines the sentiment of Louis 
XIV. for Madame de Maintenon, 
122. 

Lamballe, Princess de, 19. 

Lavallee, his work on Madame de 
Maintenon, 87, 88, 199 ; his words 
concerning alterations at Ver- 
sailles, 132; concerning apart- 
ment of Madame de Maintenon, 
134, 135 ; concerning Madame de 
Mainteuon's instructions to the 
ladies of Saint-Cyr, 165; his 
change of opinion concerning 
Madame de Maintenon, 198, 199. 



Lecuyer, Abbe, refuses absolution 
to Madame de Montespan, 74. 

Leczinska, Marie. See Marie Lec- 
zinska. 

Lenclos, Ninon de, 92, 122. 

Letters of Madame de Maintenon, 
199 et seq. ; of Madame de Se- 
vigne, 201 et seq. 

Louis XIV., his apartments at Ver- 
sailles, 2 ; his words to the aged 
Conde on the staircase at Ver- 
sailles, 5; his statue, 6, 7; his 
first visit to Versailles, 30; his 
festivities at Versailles, 30 et 
seq. ; his attachment to Ver- 
sailles, 30, 34; his apartments 
at Versailles, 36, 37; intimate 
relation between Louis XIV. and 
Versailles, 39, 40; his strong 
personality, 42; estimate of his 
character, 43 et seq. ; his polite 
and amiable disposition, 43 ; his 
incessant work, 44 ; his worship 
of glory and the ideal, 45; his 
feeling towards women, 45, 46; 
poetic quality of his amours, 46 ; 
his words concerning Madame 
de Maintenon's sensibility, 46; 
his personal attractions, 47; his 
tenderness, 46, 47 ; the beginning 
of his repentance, 48; his pas- 
sion for Mademoiselle de Fon- 
tanges, 48, 64; his feeling for 
the Duchess de la Valliere, 47- 
50; his conversion and refor- 
mation, 50, 51 ; his gravity as a 
sovereign, 51, 52; his principle 
of authority, 52, 53, 184; Napo- 
leon's words of admiration for, 
53; his sense of guilt towards 
Marie Therese, 60; legitimating 
his adulterous children, 61-63, 
95 ; his repentance, 63, 64, 67, 83 ; 
makes changes in the Queen's 
household, 64; his return of 
affection for the Queen, 65, 66; 
his words concerning Montespan, 
71 ; his religious disposition, 72 ; 
resolves to break with Madame 



262 



INDEX 



de Montespan, 74; separates 
from Madame de Montespan, 
76, 77 ; his secret correspondence 
with Madame de Montespan, 80 ; 
meets Madame de Montespan on 
his return from his army, 81, 82; 
final conversion, 84, 85; recog- 
nizes good qualities of Madame 
de Maintenon, 95, 96; receives 
Bavarian Dauphiness cordially, 
106; his attention to the Bava- 
rian Dauphiness at birth of her 
child, 107, 108 ; his heart inclined 
more toward religion, 108; his 
grief at death of his wife, 109- 
111; his kindness, 110; enter- 
tains the Bavarian Dauphiness, 
112; his love for Madame de 
Maintenon, 118; his complex 
sentiment for Madame de Main- 
tenon, 119, 120; the zenith of his 
power, 118; lofty nature of his 
attachment to Madame de Main- 
tenon, 122, 123; his marriage to 
Madame de Maintenon, 123; his 
daily life at Versailles, 137-142 ; 
witnesses performance of Esther 
at Saint-Cyr, 149 et seq.; his 
praise of the performance, 152; 
he dismisses Marquise de Caylus 
from the court, 154 ; pardons her, 
155 ; visits Saint-Cyr, 161 ; finds 
Saint-Cyr a consolation, 162; his 
detractors among historians, 184 
et seq. ; sole master of his king- 
dom, 188, 189; true relation be- 
tween him and Madame de 
Maintenon on state affairs, 188 
et seq. ; his wars and love of 
luxury, 189-191 ; forced to revoke 
the Edict of Nantes, 191-193; 
his first dislike for Madame de 
Maintenon, 95, 198 ; his indiffer- 
ence to Madame de Montespan, 
208, 214; the daughters of, 215 
et seq. ; his words concerning the 
Princess de Conti, 216; threatens 
to confine his three daughters 
in their country houses, 227 ; his 



tenderness for his children, 227; 
visits Duchess of Bourbon dur- 
ing her attack of small-pox, 227, 
228 ; receives Marie-Adfla'ide, 
229; his praise of Marie-Ade- 
la'ide, 230; his attentions to 
Marie-Adela'ide, 231 ; his interest 
in the Duchess of Burgundy, 235, 
240 ; his grief at the death of his 
son, 243; his firmness under 
trials, 244; his last hours, 248- 
253; his farewell words to 
Madame de Maintenon, 249; his 
public confession, 250; his last 
words to the Dauphin, 250; his 
calmness, 251; his death, 253; 
his tomb destroyed, 255, 256. 

Louis XV., 9; his words at funeral 
of Madame de Pompadour, 24; 
the favorites of, 26 ; his birth, 242. 

Louis XVI., 11, 12. 

Maine, Duke du, 210, 225. 

Maintenon, Madame de, her char- 
acter, 17, 86, et seq., 96-98; her 
ennui, 22 ; the symbol of her age, 
26 ; her position at Versailles in 
1682, 42 ; her sensibility, 46 ; her 
influence for good, 65, 85, 96-98 ; 
diverse opinions concerning her 
character, 87, 88, 96-98; her birth, 
89; her childhood, 89, 90; her 
marriage to Scarron, 91; her 
salon, 92; loses her husband, 92; 
admired and respected, 92, 93; 
her simple, charming manners, 
93; obtains renewal of her pen- 
sion through Madame de Montes- 
pan, 94 ; her cliarity, 94 ; becomes 
governess at court, 94; takes 
charge of the illegitimate chil- 
dren of Louis XIV., 95; her 
pension increased, 95; her disa- 
greements with Madame de Mon- 
tespan, 96, 99; purchases the 
estate of Maintenon, 96 ; accused 
of hypocrisy, 96, 97; her opposi- 
tion to the amours of Louis XIV. 
and Madame de Montespan, 99; 



INDEX 



263 



her position at court assured be- 
yond attack, 101, 102 ; her words 
at the birth of son of Bavarian 
Dauphiness, 108; her quarrels 
with Madame de Montespan ap- 
peased, 108, 109 ; her conduct at 
death of Marie Ther^se, 111 ; her 
words concerning her good for- 
tune, 117 ; her words at marriage 
of Louis XIV. and Marie Therese, 
117 ; the love of Louis XIV. for, 
118 et seq.; did not love the King, 
118; espoused by Louis XIV., 
118; her beauty well preserved, 
122 ; her marriage to Louis XIV., 
123; her sadness, 124, 127; re- 
tains her influence over Louis 
XIV., 126; she regrets Scarrou's 
house, 127; her apartment neg- 
lected by posterity, 128, 129 ; her 
apartment almost unrecogniza- 
ble, 132, 133 ; as it originally was, 
133-135 ; her daily life, 135 ; her 
retinue, 135 ; educates Mademoi- 
selle de Murfay-Villette, Mar- 
quise de Caylus, 143, 145 ; forbids 
tragedy at Saint-Cyr, 147 ; urges 
Racine to write moral poem for 
Saint-Cyr, 147; her life at Saint- 
Cyr, 157 et seq. ; her devotion to 
Saint-Cyr, 162, 163 ; her words of 
counsel to the ladies of Saint-Cyr, 
162-166 ; her distrust of the court 
of Versailles, 167; attacked by 
the Princess Palatine, 167, 168; 
reproves the Princess Palatine 
for her insults, 180, 181 ; her de- 
tractors among historians, 184 
et seq.; her true attitude towards 
the King in state affairs, 188, 
189; her desire for peace, 189, 
190 ; her distaste of luxury, 190, 
191; her attitude towards the 
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
190, 191, 194-196; moderate in 
religion and politics, 195, 196; 
a pious, sincere woman, 196, 197; 
her daily prayer, 196, 197; her 
noble devotion to the King, 197 ; 



disliked at first by Louis XIV., 
95, 198; a character not easily un- 
derstood, 198; La vallee's change 
of opinion concerning, 198, 199; 
her letters, 199-206; compared 
with Madame de Sevigne, 201- 
206; finishes the education of 
Marie Adelaide, 231, 232 ; at the 
death-bed of Louis XIV., 249; 
retires to Saint-Cyr, 252; her 
last days, 254; her death, 254; 
her burial place, 254; her tomb, 
destroyed, 257. 

Malade imaginaire, Le, performed 
at Versailles, 33. 

Manage force, Le, performed at 
Versailles, 31. 

Marie Adelaide, afterwards Duch- 
ess of Burgundy. See Burgundy, 
Duchess of. 

Marie Anne Victoire, Infanta of 
Spain, 10. 

Marie Antoinette, defended by her 
body-guard, 8; her manner in 
receiving, 9 ; main events of her 
life at Versailles, 10-13; a sym- 
bol of her age, 27. 

Marie Leczinska, the amiable and 
good, 9, 18; her death, 9, 10; her 
virtue, 27. 

Marie Therese, her apartments at 
Versailles, 7 et seq., 37; her salon, 
8 ; her bedchamber, 9 ; her death, 
9 ; her character, 17, 54, 55 ; dates 
of her birth and marriage, 41; 
her parentage, 55; her personal 
appearance, 56 ; her timid, retir- 
ing disposition, 56, 57 ; her good 
sense, 57 ; her devotion to Louis 
XIV., 57, 60; her children, 58; 
distressed by her husband's infi- 
delities, 58; her relations with 
Duchess de la Valliere, 58, 59; 
not deceived by Madame de Mon- 
tespan, 60 ; her fear of Louis 
XIV., 60, 61; Louis XIV.'s return 
of aifection for, 65, 66; her 
charity, 65, 66; her words of 
gratitude for Madame de Main- 



264 



INDEX 



tenon, 109; her death, 109, 111; 
her burial place, 255; her tomb 
desecrated, 257. 

Massillon, quoted, 5, 19, 23, 73, 115, 
208, 209, 251. 

Michelet, quoted, 190, 192, 245. 

Mirrors, Gallery of, 3. 

Moliere, performs at Versailles, 30- 
32; quoted, 70. 

Monseigneur, The Dauphin known 
as. See Dauphin, the. 

Montespan, Marquis de, 68, 71, 212. 

Montespan, Marquise de, her char- 
acter, 17, 25 ; supplanted by Ma- 
dame deMaintenon, 21; the sym- 
bol of her age, 25 ; her position 
at Versailles in 1682, 42; her 
sense of shame before the Queen, 
59, 60; loses her influence at 
court, 67; her personal charms, 
68; her birth and marriage, 68; 
disinclined at first to gallantry, 
69; the period of her favor, 69; 
La Fontaine's flattery of, 70 ; the 
children of, 71, 94, 95 ; her lustre, 
72 ; her uneasiness of conscience, 
72 ; her religious disposition, 72, 
73; refused absolution by the 
Abbe Lecuyer, 74; retires from 
the court, 77 ; returns to her cha- 
teau of Clagny, 80; meets Louis 
XrV. on his return from the 
army, 81, 82; her influence wan- 
ing, 82-84; appointed superin- 
tendent of the household of the 
Queen, 84 ; suspected of poisoning 
the Duchess of Fontanges, 84; 
obtains renewal of pension for 
Madame de Maintenon, 94; her 
bad feeling for Madame de Main- 
tenon, 96, 99, 100; believes Ma- 
dame de Maintenon is trying to 
become the King's mistress, 99, 
100; her downfall deserved, 100, 
101; her quarrels with Madame 
de Maintenon appeased, 108, 109 ; 
her conduct at death of Marie 
Therese, 111 ; her unhappy life at 
court after her downfall, 207-210 ; 



leaves Versailles, 210, 211; her 
life of repentance and humility, 
211, 212; her last years, 212, 213; 
her death and burial, 213; for- 
gotten, 214 ; her children forbid- 
den to mourn her death, 214, 220 ; 
Mur9ay-Villette, Mademoiselle de, 
afterwards Marquise de Caylus. 
See Caylus, Marquise de. 

Nantes, Edict of, 190, 191 et seq. 

Nantes, Mademoiselle de, 41 ; after- 
wards Duchess of Bourbon. See 
Bourbon, Duchess of. 

Napoleon, the first, his admiration 
for Louis XIV., 53; his prefer- 
ence for the letters of Madame 
de Maintenon, 202. 

Nesle, De, the sisters, 18. 

Nisard, De'sire, his opinion of 
Madame de Maintenon's letters, 
202. 

Noailles, Duke de, his work on 
Madame de Maintenon, 87, 88. 

Noailles, Viscountess de, her words 
concerning the Duchess of Bur- 
gundy, 241, 242. 

Orleans, Duchess of. Princess Pala- 
tine, her character, 17, 168 et 
seq., 182 ; her words at the death 
of the Queen of Spain, 21; date 
of her birth and marriage, 41; 
her homage to Louis XIV., 43; 
her hatred of Madame de Main- 
tenon, 167, 168, 181 ; her letters, 
169, 180; compared with Saint- 
Simon, 169, 170; her birth and 
marriage, 170 ; sets out for 
France, 170; her ugliness, 171; 
her dislike for Versailles, 171, 
172, 177, 179, 180; her lack of 
affection for her husband, 172; 
not in sympathy with the Cath- 
olic religion, 173; her protest 
against religious persecution, 
174 ; not interested in theological 
discussions, 174; her ideas of 
various kinds of piety, 175, 176 ; 



INDEX 



265 



her unhappy life at Versailles, 
176, 177 ; her poor opinion of her 
husband, 178; unhappy in her 
son, 178, 179 ; her hatred of the 
royal bastards, 179; slaps her 
son's face for marrying one of 
the King's illegitimate children, 
179, 224, 225 ; her correspondence 
opened, 180, 181 ; quiets down 
as a widow, 181; dies a good 
Christian, 181 ; her burial place, 
255 ; her tomb desecrated, 257. 
Orleans, Duke of, 244. 

Palatine, Princess. See Orleans, 
Duchess of. 

Philip v., of Spain, 9. 

Plaisirs de Vile enchantee, per- 
formance of, at Versailles, 30. 

Poitiers, Diana of, 121. 

Pompadour, Madame de, her char- 
acter, 18; her melancholy, 24; 
neglected and forgotten, 24; 
Louis XV. 's words at funeral 
of, 24. 

Princesse d'Elide, performed at 
Versailles, 31. 

Racine, quoted, 87 ; renounces the 
theatre, 147, 148 ; composes 
Esther, 148. 

Rigault, Hippolyte, his words con- 
cerning Mademoiselle de la Val- 
li^re and Madame de Maintenon, 
86. 

Saint Augustine, quoted, 23, 24, 209. 

Saint-Cyr, the pupils of, 147-153; 
performance of Esther at, 148- 
153; Madame de Maintenon at, 
157 et seq. ; compared to Ver- 
sailles, 158, 159; date of its open- 
ing, 160 ; Louis XIV. visits, 161 ; 
a consolation to Louis XIV., 
162; Madame de Maintenon's 
devotion to, 162, 163. 

Saint-Denis, the mausoleums of, 
destroyed, 255-257. 

Saint-Germain, chateau of, 34. 



Saint-Simon, his words concerning 
Louis XIV., 43; concerning 
Madame de Maintenon, 122; 
concerning marriage of Louis 
XIV. and Madame de Mainte- 
non, 124; concerning the Mar- 
quise de Caylus, 146; an objec- 
tionable historical witness, 184- 
188 ; his words concerning revo- 
cation of Edict of Nantes, 193; 
his ill-treatment of the Duchess 
of Chartres, 226, 227; his admi- 
ration for the Duchess of Bur- 
gundy, 236. 

Scarron, 91, 92. 

Scudery, Mademoiselle de, 92. 

Sevigne, Madame de, her words 
concerning life and death, 20; 
her words concerning Madame 
de Montespan, 21, 72, 80, 82, 83; 
concerning Madame de Mainte- 
non, 101 ; concerning revocation 
of Edict of Nantes, 193; com- 
pared with Madame de Mainte- 
non, 201-206; her rich natural 
endowments, 203, 204; her let- 
ters, 201-206; her words con- 
cerning the Princess de Conti, 
216; concerning Duchess de la 
Vallifere, 217. 

Spinola, 107. 

Tartuffe, performance of, at Ver- 
sailles, 31. 

Tombs, the royal, desecration of, 
255-258. 

Vallibre, Duchess de la, portrait 
of, by Mignard, 19; her clois- 
ter life, 49, 50, 217 ; Marie The- 
rese's relations with, 58, 59 ; her 
death, 220; her burial place, 
255. 

Versailles, during the Commune, 
1 et seq. ; haunted by memories, 
12-14 ; women of, 12-27 ; the pass- 
ing away of the glory of, 20 ; the 
chateau of, 29 et seq.; festivi- 
ties at chateau of, 30 et seq. ; 



266 



INDEX 



natural disadvantages of, 34, 35 ; 
Louis XIV. 's fondness for, 30, 34 ; 
the enlargements at, 36-38; the 
King's apartments at, 36, 37 ; the 
Queen's apartments at, 37; de- 
scription of the palace, 38, 39; 
much altered by posterity, 129 
et seq. ; the grand apartment in, 



139 ; compared to Saint-Cyr, 158, 

159. 
Victoire, Marie Anne Christine. 

See Bavarian Dauphiness. 
Voltaire, quoted, 194, 244. 

Women of Versailles, general re* 
view of, 12-27. 



H 96 



89 




^^6< 







^^d^ 






»?. 






S^ ^A 






.^'"'^ 






'o, « ' 






•«v_ 



'•^^^.^^ .-"^sm^^ ^^<^ 













'^^..^^ 



.'^^ 












;&^ 



4? .'.k!*:./^, 



% 




♦ » t 










HECKMAN 

BINDERY INC. 

j^ AUG 89 

^P^^ N. MANCHESTER, 
^fes^ INniANA 46962 







LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



019 6033373 



m 
I ' 

i ' 

I : 

i ^ 

H': . 

r ; 
: 

■ 



